The Cop and the Anthem

On his bench in Madison Square, Soapy stirred uneasily. When wild geese honk high at night, and when a man feels the chill of winter in his bones, you may know that winter is near. A dead leaf fell into Soapy's lap. That was Jack Frost's card, and Soapy understood it well: it was time to find shelter for the cold months ahead.

Soapy was a homeless man, and every year, as the weather turned, he made the same plan. He had no wish to beg for charity, and he had no love of the countryside. What he wanted was three months of warmth and regular meals, safe from the north wind. And every year, the answer was the same: Blackwell's Island, the city prison. There, at least, a man had a roof and a bed and company.

To get there, of course, a man had to be arrested. So Soapy, destitute and shivering, formed his simple intention. He would commit some small misdemeanour — nothing cruel, nothing violent — and a police officer would do the rest. A warm cell for the winter seemed to him a perfectly reasonable refuge. All he had to do was get caught.

Soapy set to work. First he strolled towards a grand restaurant, meaning to eat a fine dinner and then calmly announce he could not pay — a small swindle that would surely bring a policeman. But at the door the head waiter's eye fell on his frayed trousers and ruined shoes, and strong hands turned him quietly out onto the pavement. No dinner, no arrest.

Next he picked up a stone and shattered a shop window, then stood proudly beside it, waiting for the law. When the officer came running, Soapy was sure his moment had arrived. But the policeman refused to believe that the man who broke a window would wait around to be caught, and he chased instead after someone hurrying for a tram. Soapy walked away, disgusted.

So it went, again and again. He ate a modest meal in a cheaper place and confessed he had no money, hoping to be handed to the police — but the waiters simply threw him into the gutter and turned their backs with cold contempt. He behaved badly on a busy corner to be charged with disorder — but a passing officer took him for a harmless student and left him alone. Every plan he made backfired. The city, it seemed, was serenely indifferent to his crimes, and the warm cell stayed as far away as ever.

Cold and defeated, Soapy drifted back towards Madison Square. Then, from the open door of an old church, he heard music — an organ playing a sweet, familiar anthem. He stopped. The tune carried him back to the person he had once been: a life with a mother, with friends, with clean thoughts and honest hopes, before the streets had worn him down.

A wonderful change came over him. He was disgusted with the life he had fallen into. In that moment a new resolve rose in him: he would pull himself out of the mud. Tomorrow he would go into the roaring downtown district and find work. A man had once offered him a job; he would find that man. He would be someone in the world again. For the first time in years, Soapy meant to make an honest plan and keep it.

As he stood there, filled with this bright new intention, he felt a hand on his arm. He turned to see the broad face of a policeman. "What are you doing here?" the officer asked. "Nothing," said Soapy. "Then come along," said the policeman. The next morning, at the police court, the magistrate spoke the sentence: three months on Blackwell's Island. Soapy had got exactly what he had chased all winter — at the very moment he had finally decided he no longer wanted it.