"Greasy Lake"

"Greasy Lake", by Thomas C. Boyle, reveals a moment of enlightened transformation in three young men as they experience a series of mistakes, consequences, and reformation. The three friends, who have considered themselves "bad characters", discover that being "bad" is not anything like they thought. After experiencing a night full of terrible mishaps, the teenagers realize that living a truly rebellious and dangerous lifestyle is not for them. Boyle’s coming of age story explores a turning point of the young men’s road to maturity. For the characters of this story, one mistake follows another, revealing potential and actual consequences that lead up to a final moment of self-recognition.

Similar to the murky lake they frequent, the main characters are so obsessed with their fake personas that they lose sight of their true personalities. The young men see themselves as bad characters, "We wore torn-up leather jackets, slouched around with toothpicks in our mouths, sniffed glue…we drank gin and grape juice, Tango, Thunderbird, and Bali Hai. We were nineteen. We were bad"(1). Yet, they are not born in the slums, or even self-sustaining tough guys who live on their own rules. The main characters are suburban teenagers in rebellion against anything and everything in their path simply because it is cool. It was "a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad"(1). The narrator describes his friends as "two dangerous characters" although Digby attends Cornell by "allowing his father to pay his tuition", Jeff is thinking of quitting school to become a painter, and the narrator drives his mother’s station wagon. As the night progresses, the friends are horrified to experience what being "bad" is truly like.

Hoping to find some last minute excitement before returning home, the characters drive up to the local hangout known as Greasy Lake. After a series of unfortunate mistakes, the three boys find themselves in a fight with a real tough guy. In the midst of the climactic moment, the narrator loses his keys and their only way to escape the rough situation. The "bad greasy character" is able to manhandle all of the boys at once. The narrator explains that, "I was terrified. Blood was beating in my ears, my hands were shaking, my heart turning over like a dirtbike in the wrong gear"(11). Unsure of how to handle the situation, the narrator returns to the battle with a tire iron and takes the assailant down with a single blow. The immature boys are at a loss, "No one said anything. We just stared down at the guy…Rattled, I dropped it{tire iron} in the dirt, already envisioning the headlines, the pitted faces of the police inquisitors…"(14). Acting purely on adrenaline, the three friends move on to assault the man’s girlfriend. At this point, they have traveled far into the dark side and have truly become unscrupulous characters. The boys are finally living their dream of becoming "bad characters", but their dream has turned into a nightmare.

The series of mistakes the boys unknowingly commit set the stage for their eventual transformation and realization of their immaturity. The arrival of the second car stops them from crossing over into rape and scares them so badly that can only think to retreat deep into the woods. As the narrator encounters a dead body in the lake, the narrator reaches a point in which he loses all self-control. The narrator, "stumbled back, but the muck took hold of my feet—a sneaker snagged, balance lost—and suddenly I was pitching face forward into the buoyant black mass, throwing my hands out in desperation…"(21). The introduction of the dead body adds the extra push for the narrator to evaluate his current circumstances and realize that acting "bad" only gets him into trouble. After waiting hours in the reeds surrounding the scene of the crime, all three dazed boys emerge together. Physically and mentally exhausted, "They slouched across the lot, looking sheepish, and silently came up beside me to gape at the ravaged automobile. No one said a word" (33). When they think the night is over, two older girls approach their car as the boys are trying to collect themselves. The boys "looked at her like zombies, like war veterans, like deaf-and-dumb pencil peddlers"(40). The young men are given a second chance to fulfill the "real bad character" persona that they so desired before when the girls ask them if they want to party. Although Digby is the only character able to verbally denounce the temptation, the silence of the other two characters is enough to lead us to believe that the young men have undergone a serious transformation. The narrator "just looked at her. I thought I was going to cry"(44). All of the young men have changed from their experience and no longer desire the life of a "real bad character".

After the boys emerge from their hiding places around Greasy Lake, they return to society with a cleansed sense of maturity and understanding. The series of unfortunate events the young men encounter lead them to realize that being "bad" is not all that they hoped it would be. The night they experienced is their harsh initiation into the real world. The narrator understands that he could easily have been lying next to the dead biker on the lake. If he was not as lucky as he was that night, he would have been killed over his notion that being "bad" was the only way to be cool. The night’s events are permanently etched into their minds. For the rest of their lives, the defining moment at Greasy Lake helped the young men realize that acting "bad" did not fit their personality and was not worth the expense that it could cost them. (976)