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Greasy Lake


             As bad as they think?: Every teenage boy thinks they are as bad as the next one. Sometimes this boosted confidence can get people who can't hold up to their image in a situation that they are not ready to handle. Situations such as these reveal the true person inside, and weed out the proposed images. In T.C. Boyles short story "Greasy Lake" three teenagers, Digby, Jeff, and the narrator find themselves in the middle of something that they are not prepared to handle, even though they ensure us and themselves that they are. When our narrator's bad boy image is called to action the night at Greasy Lake, we find out it is just that, an image that is used to cover an unformed, true identity.
             The narrator does a good job early on in the story convincing us that he is a bad character, but he also gives us some clues to reveal his true self. The story starts off with the three teenage boys driving around in their parents station wagon looking for something to do; or more specifically, looking for trouble. There is already one thing wrong with this scenario, "Digby pounded the dashboard and shouted along with Toots & the Maytals while Jeff hung his head out the window and streaked the side of my mother's Bel Air with vomit". Their parents station wagon is not your typical bad boy car, which makes it apparent that these boys are not the real deal. The real bad boys in the story drive a chopper and a 57 chevy. Boyle makes a point to put everyone else in the story in bad boy cars. The drugged up girls at the conclusion of the story are also in a muscle car. When approached by the girls, they were offered drugs. Then, not only did their car not hold up to the bad boy image but neither did their actions. While bragging about how tough he and his friends are, the narrator tells the girls, "debated going to a party at the house of a girl Jeff's sister knew, and chucked two dozen raw eggs at mailboxes and hitchhikers".


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