Critique of Stuart Dybek's "We Didn't"

I'm writing this critique as a native Chicagoan. I suppose everyone has a special relationship with their home town and judges writing based in that place somewhat harshly, or at least diligently. The first thing that struck me is the use of kielbasa, almost as part of the setting. I'm pretty sure this is a midwestern thing as well as a Chicago thing, but where one gets his meat and who is making it is very important when judging your neighbors. I thought it was a nice touch and an appropriate tip-of-the-hat to the town when it was mentioned. Next, the fact that this story was set on the beach at night is probably my favorite part of the story. I know this was set years before I was a teenager, but I know that only hormonally driven teenagers are the only ones who venture to the lake at night, mainly because the beaches close at sundown and nobody else is stupid enough to risk getting a ticket.

A part of the story that I loved was the intrusion of the dead pregnant woman in the lives of the two main characters. At first it seems as if the dead woman is getting between the two lovebirds, but then I realized that the narrator's unabashed sexual desire was getting between them and the dead girl was more of an excuse. I don't think his girlfriend wanted to be so physical with him. Through the narrator's own description, he was far too aggressive, far too careless (a sandy condom?), and virtually disinterested in the girl herself. The girl may have known this, but I think she was kidding herself and using the trauma of seeing the dead woman as some sort of protection mechanism. The narrator thinks the summer was ruined by that terrible experience, but he had simply encountered the same thing every teen boy does: a disinterested teenaged girl.