Greasy Lake post

Upon finishing Greasy Lake by T.C. Boyle, I was pleasantly surprised and amused. The narrative begins with a humorous opening where the boys are described as “bad” yet hints that they are actually the opposite and quite loserish. A few paragraphs later the author describes the first three nights of their summer, where they go around trying to find something “cool and bad” to do, with no success, so they decide to grab some gin and go up to Greasy Lake. Clearly they had nothing better to do.

In the second paragraph of the narrative, Greasy Lake is described ominously as “fetid and murky” with “broken glass [and] beer cans” foreshadowing the “bad” actions that will follow. The night starts off bad with an innocent prank proposed by Digby. They turned their brights on, honking and laughing hysterically hoping that they would embarrass their friend Tony while he was with a girl. Typical teenage boys. But their prank failed; it wasn’t Tony’s car they were messing with.

Almost immediately, the fight was on. It is told by the narrator in a very humorous way, showing the boys’ lack of bravado and strength. For example, he says that the man’s steel-toed boot “chipped [his] favorite tooth.” It seems that he was more worried about the sentimental value of the tooth, then the actual physical damage.Surprisingly enough the author narrates the fight as if it was entirely one sided. One man seemed to injure three others, with little effort. This is surprising since the first paragraph of the narrative is trying to show that the boys are “bad.”

Then out of nowhere, they find a tire iron and end the fight. Immediately they are scared of being caught for their act. But quickly their attention is turned to a girl the man was with, “the fox.” For some reason, out of all the body parts that could have attracted them, her flashy toenails captivate their attention. Before they could do anything, they are caught like deer in headlights. They run quickly into the woods, just like the brave men they make themselves out to be. Then they find out that the guy they beat up with the tire iron was alive; ah relief. The guy who seemingly came back to life was lucky, Al not so much.

They then return to their car to find that the windshield and the headlights had been completely wrecked. Two girls in a mustang come up to them, drank and out of balance. They ask about Al, but the boys deny knowing anything about him, so as to not explain to these girls that he was the dead man. Lucky for them, they leave the scene without any major tragedies. They also leave just as foolish as they came.