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The only dynamic character in “Greasy Lake” is the narrator, who undergoes a dramatic change during the story. Of the static characters, Bobbie, whom readers know for most of the story as the “bad greasy character,” is the story’s lead antagonist and something of a foil for the narrator. The narrator thinks that he and his friends are “dangerous characters,” but they’re dangerous in a culturally dictated way, at a time when “it was good to be bad.” Their dangerous actions are lightweight: leaving tire tracks on the streets, drinking, and wearing torn clothing. The prank they hope to pull on Tony—with the bonus of getting a “glimpse” of his girlfriend’s breast—is embarrassing but harmless. Bobbie, in contrast, is actually a “very bad character” who “ripped” out of his car ready to inflict pain.
Details draw out the contrasts between Bobbie and the narrator: the narrator wears sneakers, while Bobbie delivers his kicks with steel-toed boots. He’s willing to kick a man who’s down in the grass because of a prank, and he easily swats the teens’ ineffective attacks away. Only with the tire iron can the narrator stop Bobbie, for a little while at least, and the contempt with which Bobbie later uses the tire iron to smash the car and with which he throws it “halfway across the lake” stands in for what he would have done to the narrator if he found him. The narrator does share, in the heat of the moment, the “murderous primal” rage that drives the fight, a suggestion that he could one day be like Bobbie. But unlike Bobbie, who defends his girlfriend and drives away, the injured narrator hides fearfully in the mud and watches as Bobbie and the two blond guys destroy his mother’s car.
