The bars and clubs are closing and they had cruised the strip 67 times. There is nothing left for the three boys to do but head up to Greasy Lake. Upon arriving at the lake, Digby recognizes a mint ’57 Chevy as his friend Tony Lovett’s car. After beating on the horn and strobing their lights at the Chevy, they exit their vehicle in hopes of catching a glimpse of their friend engaging in some kind of sexual act. As they near the Chevy, a very bad character with greasy jeans steps out of the car. The narrator receives a swift kick in the jaw that knocks him to the ground. To his defense Digby delivers “a savage kung fu blow to the greasy character’s colla

After the two blond fraternity boys and the greasy character destroy the narrator’s mom’s Bel Air and flee the scene, the narrator circles the car examining the damage. Digby and Jeff return shortly after. After climbing into the car, another vehicle pulls into the lot giving the boys quite a scare. Two girls, noticeably intoxicated, approach the three boys and offer them to hang out and take some unknown pills. The narrator politely refuses their offer. The first paragraph of the story notes how the boys abuse alcohol, smoke marijuana, and once snorted a substance they believed to be cocaine because that is what bad people do. What should also be noted is that the narrator has every opportunity to rape the two girls if he wishes to, just as he does earlier in the story, but the thought never crosses his mind. By not accepting the girls’ offer to party and consume unknown pills, and by not pursuing sexual pleasure from raping the two girls, the narrator exhibits once again how the situation that unfolded at Greasy Lake changes his attitude toward being “bad.”

As the story continues, the greasy character’s girlfriend steps out of the car screaming at the three boys. The three boys were just beginning to rape the young girl when another car pulls into the lot. Knowing that they are caught in the act, they flee the scene. The narrator bolts into the undergrowth at the lake’s edge. Before he realizes what he is doing, he is knee-deep in water and decides to swim across the lake to take refuge in the thick woods on the other side. As he starts to take his first stroke, he bumps into a large mass floating in the water. It does not take him long to realize he is wading in the water next to

Some topics in this essay:
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