As teenagers on a brink of adolescence to adulthood go through a point in their lives where they want to step out from parental control. During these teens’ years, they try out different elements, such as drugs, drinking, societal disturbance, sexual exploration and violence. As a result, the community where they live would also determine what morals they get. Do they live in pursuit of greener pastures, or do they mature and learn from their mistakes? Here, the life of a wayward teenager without morals is characterized by atrocities, social vices and most times crime which could ruin the life or take it if not cautioned. The story “Greasy Lake,” by T.C. Boyle tells the tale a group of male teenagers residing in low-cost housing located…show more content… The boys decided to take advantage of her and sexually harass her. A car pulls up and a man starts screaming at them, and they end up fleeing the scene by running and decides to hide in the lake in case the police arrive at the scene. According to Professor McMurran, “anxiety actually protects us by telling us to avoid or escape certain situations”. While alone in the lake, he finds a dead man floating and wonders what happened to him. “I blundered into something. Something unspeakable, obscene, something soft, wet, moss-grown” (Charters 168). He probably acted tough and cool but most likely ended up in a fight and was murdered. The finding of the dead body sets up the epiphany the boy has after coming to the lake that night. He is frightened and this part of the story really makes him think about gravitating toward the side of growing up. He sees that if he stays immature and keeps girls, drugs, and alcohol as his top priorities in life, he will end up like the dead man in the lake. He later heard the his attacker scream “the greasy bad character was laying into the side of my mother’s Bel Air like an avenging demon, his shadow riding up the trunks of the trees” (Charters 169), and he thought “My jaws ached, my knee throbbed, my coccyx was on fire. I contemplated suicide, wondered if I’d need bridgework, scraped the recesses of my brain for some