Greasy Lake by T. Coraghessan Boyle Short Story Analysis

In “Greasy Lake” , T.C. Boyle portrays his younger self and when there was a time when it was good to be “ bad and dangerous “ back in the 1960s. How they did this was by racing their parents' station wagons , dressing up in tough and worn clothes , and one night by going up to Greasy Lake and doing mischievous things. One of the things they did was to hit someone with a tire iron because of a prank which didn’t end so well. Because of that people start to yell and chase the group. The narrator runs away as people are chasing him, he goes and swims away in the lake. What he doesn’t realize is that there is a dead body in the lake leading him to know that he’s already in deep with his reality of trying to be “ bad.” Because of the narrator's desire on his quest to be dangerous, regret fills him up and he decides to flee to innocence. T.C. Boyle uses the dead body as a symbol of regret, leading to the demise of the bad character’s quest to be “bad.”  

The narrator’s quest shows an example of how a simple boring suburban life can turn into a mental nightmare just within a short period of time. In the text it states that “ We wore torn up leather jackets , slouched around with toothpicks in our mouths , sniffed glue and ether and what somebody claimed was cocaine.” Just by the way the group is already dressing, they are trying to prove within themselves that they are “bad”. And this continues throughout most of the story until they try a dangerous prank which shows how desperate they are wanting to prove their “badness”. The prank was to prank one of their friends into thinking they were the state troopers , trying to scare him by putting their lights on . But little did they know that it wasn’t in fact their friend and instead a random person who was not finding their prank funny. Even when in the text it says “ Digby had just finished a course in martial arts for phys-ed credit.”. If kung fu is the only thing that this group has to show the “badness” that they are wanting to show everyone, then they have seriously made a huge mistake in regards to this journey to “badness”. Then this goes to show a mental nightmare is around the corner for the boys. Since the boys are living their usual suburban life they are not ready for reality to set upon themselves regarding striking down the greasy character. 

In addition , the dead body in Greasy Lake is a symbol of regret by making him realize his reality to be bad has gone too far. From the text it states “AAAAArgh! I shot from the water like a torpedo , the dead man rotating to expose a mossy beard and eyes as cold as the moon. I must have shouted out , thrashing around in the weeds , because the voices behind me suddenly became animated. This shows  the narrator opening up to his regret about his actions that night at Greasy Lake. And the important thing is that after this is that the bad quest the narrator and his friends were on ended on that day . Just like in “The Finkelstein 5” the bat has the same symbol as the dead body does in Greasy Lake. In “ The Finkelstein 5” it states “The blade in his fist grew as his thumb pushed at the box cutter . He stepped forward. “ I don’t know what to do! Emmanuel screamed, and swung the bat full force , cutting the wind in half and hitting Boogie in the flank , crashing the bat into his ribs.” (Adjei-Brenyah 15). What happened there is the same thing that happened in Greasy Lake where they both are in shock from the actions they’ve done.  In Emmanuel’s case he was almost getting ready to kill a couple because of all the injustice that’s been happening throughout the story . Because of an unfair court ruling Emmanuel starts his quest for justice , in his case killing innocent people of the other race. Eventually this comes down to the end where it’s Emmanuel's turn to kill . But that’s where the regret hits him that this isn’t his reality . It’s false and it’s only causing more harm than good.