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Writers may allude to ideas, objects, people, and places from the present or the past, and they may choose real allusions or allude to other works of fiction or to other forms of art. If readers recognize the allusions, they can incorporate what they know about the thing alluded to into their understanding of the story. Allusions are a kind of shared shorthand. For example, when Digby spins “apocryphal tales of Bruce Lee types,” the allusion to the famous martial arts master, and by extension to the movies that showcased his skills, quickly and efficiently conveys Digby’s inflated opinion of his skills. The allusion adds humor, too, since Digby’s “savage kung-fu blow” is anything but effective.
The contrasting allusion to Bobbie’s expression during the fight, like that on a “Toltec mask,” communicates to readers who can envision Toltec images of warriors the large man’s unyielding and effective defense against Digby. With two allusions, Boyle gives readers the flavor of the fight.
Other allusions throughout the story similarly add meaning—even if readers need an occasional footnote to unpack that meaning. The story’s title alludes to lyrics of a Bruce Springsteen song and, again by extension, to that musician’s take on American culture. Boyle, too, uses allusions to characterize American culture, possibly of the early 1970s. The story is set at a time when young men think about the Vietnam conflict, to which the narrator alludes, and when muscle cars, whose models the narrator names, convey status. Bobbie’s car is a mint restoration of an older car, and the two blonde men and two impaired women drive coveted muscle cars. The narrator, by contrast, is stuck in his mother’s old car, and he speaks of having to drive parents’ “whining” station wagons. These and other allusions suggest the kinds of things the narrator thinks about—serious matters like war and less serious matters like the cachet a particular car confers on its driver.
