Providence

Providence is the setting of a formative episode in the Unnamed protagonist’s adolescence, when a night ashore from an oil barge ends in police detention. The recollection presents the city first as a temporary place of work and leisure, then as the site of an unexpected encounter with law enforcement.

Arrival and wartime work

At fifteen, the Unnamed protagonist had run away from home again and found work on an oil barge. The account places his arrival in Providence during the war, when, as he recalls it, employers asked few questions and cared chiefly whether a worker could do the job. The barge’s stop gave him and another deckhand a night off in the city.

A night ashore

The two young men walked around Providence and went to a large movie house; the Unnamed protagonist no longer remembers what film they saw. Afterward, they continued walking through a park and met a girl. The three spent time together away from the main path, then set out toward a bus stop so the deckhands could return to the barge. Unsure of the route, they accepted the girl’s help as she walked with them.

Police intervention and significance

On a dark, narrow street, a car stopped beside the group and two men ordered them inside. The Unnamed protagonist recalls being frightened and unable to ask what was happening. The men identified themselves as police officers and said they wanted to check on the girl because they thought she might have run away. The group was taken to a station house.

At the station, the girl was brought into one room and the two young men into another. Their pockets were emptied, their belongings placed in envelopes, and they were separated for questioning. The account does not establish what followed. Providence therefore remains both the place where the adolescent briefly experiences time away from the barge and the setting where that freedom gives way to police control.