Compare the symbols found in "Spirit in the Night" and "Greasy Lake."

Bruce Springsteen’s song “Spirit in the Night” inspired
the story “Greasy Lake” by T. Coraghessan Boyle. The song and the story share a setting
in Greasy Lake. Although Greasy Lake is a fictional place, it is a combination of two
locations in New Jersey.

The setting is obviously the local
make-out place for teenagers.  The atmosphere is ethereal, sexual, and
violent. 

The fairy dust represents a powdered
drug that is probably like heroin or cocaine.  It kills all
the pain and allows the introverted to lose their inhibitions. With a girl named Crazy
Jane and her friend Wild Billy, the party goes down at Greasy
Lake.

Billy and Jane pick up more friends—Hazy Davy and
Killer Joe—and they are off to Greasy Lake “where the gypsy angels go.” Billy offers
them ‘”fairy dust.”  The narrator describes it:

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Wild Billy was a crazy cat

And he shook some dust out of his coonskin cap
He said, "Trust
some of this, it'll show you where you're at
Or at least it'll help you
really feel
it"

Billy and Davy
are described at first as dancing in the moonlight and later taking part in a mud fight
in the water. Finally, Crazy Janey tells them that it is time to go.  So, they say
goodbye to Greasy Lake where they danced, sang, made love, fought, took drugs—all to the
fairy dust and the spirits of the night.

“Greasy Lake”  by
T. C. Boyle  describes three young men home from college and looking for something to do
even if it is trouble.  The first person point of view employs the protagonist as the
narrator.  Using a flashback, the main character looks back at a foolish incident and
feels lucky that he survived. 

The author creates a setting
that all teenagers recognize—the local make-out and beer bust place.  Beginning with a
practical joke that goes terribly wrong, the protagonist believes that he has killed a
man.  After that, the boys turn on the man’s girlfriend and would have raped her except
for a car that pulls in the parking lot just as the boys attack
her.

The girl screams for help, and the boys scatter.  In
the lake, the main character discovers something that surprises and scares him into
acknowledging that this was a stupid idea:

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As I was about to take the plunge… I
blundered into something unspeakable, obscene, something soft... When I reached out to
touch it, it gave like
flesh. 

Of course,
he bumps into a dead body placed there by the man that he thought he killed. As the
second car arrives, he sees the man in the lights from the
car.

One of the main symbols is the lost key. When the
narrator loses the key, he acts irrationally and tries to kill someone and almost rapes
a girl. After he finds the body in the water, the narrator remembers the lost
key. 

The narrator retreats from the girls who come in the
other car when the boys return to their car. The dawn reveals the key shining like a
“jewel” just where he had dropped it. As the narrator leaves Greasy Lake, he is
emotionally and morally changed.

Greasy Lake is actually
one symbol that both works share; as a location it represents the temporary loss of
innocence, inhibition, morals, and good sense.