Greasy Lake

Anna Sukhova

Per 2 Ap Eng

9/7/12

“Greasy Lake”

Desiring to "fit in" and be a part of the "cool crowd" the teenagers try desperately to do anything they can in order to be something they are not. From T.C. Boyle's breathtaking description, three male nerds attempt to party for a night and it ends very badly. The description in this passage is amazing. It conveys the idea of the narrative clearly, allowing the reader to easily interpret every idea that the author has attempted to convey.

The “nerd” characteristic of the boys is never lost throughout the passage. At the very least in every three paragraphs there is a historic reference as the narrator describes the events taking place. When discussing their error of mistaking the car the narrator references Westmoreland’s decision to dig in at Khe Sanh, while being beaten he describes the attackers fast as a Toltec mask. Recalling a past fight, of which there is only one, he described the hit he took as a “Louisville slugger”, the boys are clearly at a disadvantage. They do not know anything about the life of “thugs”, and the only other fighting experience available to them is Digby’s kung-fu course, being only nineteen and inexperienced, defending against a man is seemingly impossible.

The passage starts out as a humorous description of boys who try hard to have a “good time”, as defined by the people around them. Going to “Greasy Lake” to party was the common activity. The teenage boys who “sniffed glue and ether” drinking “gin and grape juice” as well as other cheap fruity alcoholic drinks and last but not least they drove their parents “whining station wagons”. The narrator considered himself to be with “two dangerous characters” as they set out on their adventure to Greasy Lake “driving through the strip, and past the housing developments.” A drunken mistake landed then into a situation which truly only “bad characters” would be in. The dead man the narrator finds symbolizes what their fate may have potentially been that night. The narrator describes the man they meet as a “greasy character” echoing the earlier description of Greasy Lake which was previously called Wakan by the Native Americans, as a symbol of is clarity. The narrator goes on to describe the condition the lake is now, “fetid and murky, the mud banks glitter with broken glass and are strewn with beer cans”. The lake was once pure, just as the man with the “Toltec mask” had once been but now he is greasy just as the lake is now greasy, and just as the boys have an opportunity to learn from their experience that night.