So my impression was accurate.
Yeah, downtown. I was living in Philly and my buddy came out from LA with his girl. In the middle of the visit we road-tripped to Providence to ssee John Spencer Blues Explosion. His choice. I was like, whatever.
After the show we hit some packed fuckin' bar, right before last call. Soon enough everyone gets kicked out, same as the other bars. The streets are full. We cabbed it down from the BnB my buddy booked. Getting one to go home at that time was proving difficult. Next you know a fight breaks out. Then another. Then another. A police presence materialized. We asked one cop where to catch a cab (since phoning for one hadn't panned out). He says up the street.
We go up the street (about 6 of us). There's cops and about 20 people outside of another bar. But at least it looks like a larger intersection. Out of nowhere, one of the two pigs, from a distance of maybe 30 feet, points and yells at me to get out of there (and head back towards where all the fights were). I'm fucking dumbfounded because there's two dozen other folks milling about on the sidewalk as well. How I'm singled out still makes no sense to this day.
I don't move fast enough, he marches up and starts getting aggressive in my face. I try to explain I'm with these other folks, we're looking for a cab, and I don't even know where the fuck I'm staying in town. He wasn't having any of it. So with discretion being the better part of valor, I shuffled off as demanded.
He went back to his crowd control duties and I doubled back across the street as soon as it seemed safe. We all shortly got a cab from there and no ride was taken down to the station. All I could wonder is if he just hated dudes with long hair or if maybe I looked like the guy that banged his girl.
The next week I wrote a scathing review of the town I was gonna send to the local paper. But you know how it is, just writing the thing gets shit off your chest. But to this day I think of Providence as that fictitious place in the movies where the townies and college boys are mortal enemies.