Advice in The Swiss Pencil
In the short story The Swiss Pencil by Thomas Adams, the main character asks advice from a person a few years older than him, advice about how to approach kissing the girl he likes. Eddie James, a senior who believes he has just met the girl of his dreams, is going over to her house for a study date. The day is Saturday, and this will be the first time Eddie will be seeing Louise Parker after they met at school on the previous Wednesday. Eddie first saw Louise at a school assembly for juniors and seniors about the SAT, an important test for students who plan to go to college. He was attracted to her immediately, and when he came out of the assembly in the gym he saw her eating her lunch. She seemed to be waiting for him, so he went up to where she was sitting, and she said “Hello.” They had a friendly conversation, and she invited him over to her house to study for the SAT on the next Saturday. At first, when she found out that he was a senior, she didn’t think he’d be interested, because she figured he’d already taken the SAT. But Eddie was interested because it was an opportunity to see her again and get to know her better.
We learn at the beginning of the story that Eddie wasn’t really crazy about taking the SAT, or even going to college. “Until a week and a half ago, the test was the farthest thing from his mind. None of his homies was taking it. To them, the SAT was for Whitey Wannabees looking for four or more additional years of brainwashing and stalling” (Adams, 1). We also learn that Eddie is extremely smart, that he might have still been planning to go to college if his grandmother (aka Granny) was still alive, and that his counselor, Doc Belson, is doing whatever he can to see that Eddie doesn’t throw his life away. It was Belson who got Eddie into the Rancho Santa Susana Home for Boys after Granny’s death, and it is Sylvester, an assistant supervisor at the boys’ home, whom Eddie asks for advice about when and how to kiss Louise. This takes place when Sylvester is driving Eddie to Louise’s house for the study date. It appears that Eddie is pretty close to Sylvester and trusts him, because he already told him about Louise and how he feels about her. So now, on their way to Louise’s house, Eddie wants Sylvester’s advice on this important move in a relationship, the first kiss.
Sylvester knows that Eddie has strong feelings for this girl, so he gives Eddie strong and level-headed advice. Sylvester tells Eddie to not worry about it, to just let it happen. “A man bides his time, lets the moment unfold,” he tells Eddie. He also points out that Louise’s main goal right now is to do well on the SAT, and that spending the day “playing kissy face” is probably not exactly what Louise has in mind. “So don’t worry about it, man. You’ll just know.” Sylvester also takes this opportunity to explain to Eddie the difference between a boy and a man. “A boy gets nervous, lets his awkwardness show,” he says. “A man acts when the time calls for him to act, because he’s focused on his life, so he knows when to act and why he’s acting” (11). Like Doc Belson, Sylvester seems to want what’s best for Eddie. When Eddie asks Sylvester for his advice, Sylvester takes the opportunity to tell Eddie more than simply when the time is right to kiss a girl. This is because he knows how important this is to Eddie, and that when friends ask advice about things that really matter to them, they are most open to listening to what the advisor has to say. Furthermore, because Eddie has been confiding in him, Sylvester knows that Louise is a smart girl, that she has strict parents, and that she plans to go to college. As someone who cares about Eddie, he realizes that for these reasons Louise could be a good influence on Eddie, who has been blowing off school and wasting time hanging out with his friends, his “homies” who aren’t exactly the college-going type. Sylvester doesn’t want Eddie to blow it with Louise by appearing too eager or having a one track mind.
It turns out to be a good thing that Eddie asks Sylvester about this, and that Sylvester gives Eddie the advice that he does. If Eddie didn’t follow Sylvester’s advice, or if he asked someone like his friend TJ, “the self-appointed babe connoisseur” (4), things may not have gone as well as they did, at least as far as the kiss was concerned. Eddie plays it very cool, and he takes the “study” part of the “study date” almost as seriously as Louise. They grow closer when they read each other’s practice essays, and Louise cries when she reads about Eddie’s life, and realizes how much his grandmother, who is now dead, must have meant to him. TJ probably would have told Eddie to kiss Louise the first chance he gets, and to try to go as far as he can with her, causing Eddie to focus on that rather than on studying. Even if he hadn’t asked TJ, and simply followed his own impulse, Eddie might have acted too quickly, or maybe he would have been too nervous about it and not acted at all. Because he does follow Sylvester’s advice, he doesn’t worry about it, and then, a little while after the tender moment they have when Louise reads his essay, and after they almost get into the argument, they read a part of Romeo and Juliettogether, the part in which Romeo and Juliet meet and kiss for the first time. The timing for Eddie and Louise’s first kiss is perfect, and Sylvester’s words “You’ll just know, that’s all” (11) may have been just what Eddie needed to have heard to be able to follow through with the kiss at the point where Romeo and Juliet kiss. He may have especially needed the extra push that Sylvester’s advice gives him after the near argument he had with Louise about college and their dating. The moment was right, and, as Sylvester himself may have agreed, Eddie behaved like a man.
Had Eddie acted too quickly, or had he come on too strong, Louise just might have cut things off with him. We see this when they begin to discuss going on a real date. When he begins to worry that because his life’s plans might not include going to college and Louise won’t want to be his girlfriend, Louise tries to make light of the conversation. The topic is a bit heavy for a first date, and Louise isn’t very comfortable with his assumption that she was ready at all to be his girlfriend. “Would you go to prom with me if I decided not to go to college?” “I never said I would even if you were going to college” (15). Sylvester is right. This young lady is indeed“a smart cookie. She’s got a plan for her life” (11). She also has a lot of class, enough at least to not let any boy ask her to prom in such a way as Eddie seems to be trying to do it. Her point to Eddie is that he hasn’t even asked her to prom, that he is pulling the cart before the horse. It was how a boy might act, and to Louise, it is unacceptable. But as for a man who kisses a woman when the time is right, well, she’s okay with that. One hopes that Eddie will have the good sense to consult with Sylvester before he brings up the subject of prom to Louise again.