T. Coraghessan BoyleÆs ôGreasy Lake,ö is a short story that features three young friends who become involved in an reckless night of adolescent thrill-seeking that involves physical violence, attempted rape, and a murder. The narrator and his two friends, Digby and Jeff, inadvertently become involved in the beating of ôBobby,ö a bad sort they interrupt with his girlfriend who the narrator is forced to club with a tire iron. Thinking him dead, they attempt to rape the girl. When two fraternity brothers come upon the scene, they become determined to get revenge. Though the narrator and his friends thought him so, Bobby is not dead. However, a bikerÆs body is found floating in the lake, the outcome of the frat brothersÆ and BobbyÆs revenge. When a girl comes looking for a biker named ôAl,ö the narrator and his friends deny knowledge of him. As we are told, they leave ôThe girlàstanding there, watching [them], her shoulders slumped, hand outstretched,ö (Boyle, p. 11). In a postmodern world of relative ethics and socially constructed values, BoyleÆs ôGreasy Lakeö is a symbol for the moral quagmire faced by human beings in their daily actions in such an environment.
We see that appearances are all that matter to the narrator and his friends. Their ethics, values, and aspirations are the stuff of Hollywood cinema and popularity contests for hoods. As the narrator describes he and his friends, they are ôquick with a sneer, able to manage a Ford with lousy shocks over a rutted and gutted blacktop road at eighty-five while rolling a joint as compact as a Tootsie Roll Pop stick,ö (Boyle, p. 1). These values and behaviors stem from the lack of ambition or values directed at community in the friends. Their social lives revolve around substance use and a ôbadö attitude. ôWe were all dangerous characters then,ö says the narrator, (Boyle, p. 1). Such a value system undermines the boys character and development,<...