This is because he likes doing thing that are usually only for adulthood, like drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. Holder was having an alcoholic drink with Luck even though he is only seventeen years Old, “l kept sitting there getting drunk and waiting for old Tina and Jeanine to come out and do their stuff, but they weren’t there. (Peg. 165)” This demonstrations how Holder loves the part of adulthood where you can drink, smoke, and hit on girls.
This is because Holder wants to forget about his depression, so he does these things that are unhealthy for his body so he can just forget. Although Holder is trying to find out where he belongs, he tries to protect kids from loosing innocent too fast, “But while I was sitting down, I saw somebody written ‘Buck you’ on the wall. It drove me near crazy. Thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them-all cockeyed, naturally-what it meant, and how he’d all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days.
I kept wanting to kill whoever written it. (Peg. 221 )” This shows that Holder want to protect the innocents of little kids, and how he doesn’t want them to grow up like adults. This is because he sees what the adult world does to kids, and he wants to change that as much as possible. In conclusion, Holder needs to prepare for adult hood, but he is only in high school, he shouldn’t be drinking and smoking, because he is still a kid, only he needs to make decisions on his own.