On the Devil's Court

“I’ve always been able to shoot well. The ball just feels good in my hands. Actually, it’s not the hands but in the fingertips where the feel is. If I get the ball up in my fingertips, and if I follow through with my wrist, the ball is going in. There is absolutely nothing like the sound of a perfect swish.

Joe describes the intimacy and passion he feels for the basketball itself here. He relates the particular feeling and sound he associates with the ball. As the story progresses, he shows such familiarity and affection for his teammates and how the game is played. Throughout, Joe equates good experiences with the ball to good days, and bad days equate to poor experiences with shooting and playing.

“I’d never been with anyone who’d done anything like that before. I should have walked away. I had the car; Ross would have had to follow. But I didn’t move. I just watched him, and I kept thinking how astonished my father would be if he ever found out. I was scared, but it was exciting. And I felt strangely powerful, as if I were capable of things I hadn’t dreamed of.” 

Ross has talked Joe into driving him to a golf course where Ross spray paints graffiti on several buildings. Extremely sheltered, Joe is awakened for the first time to the possibility of doing things he realizes are wrong, something he finds alluring and frightening at the same time.

I was looking forward to lacing up my sneakers and laying it on the line against the best players in the city. And it wasn’t just because of the basketball that I was looking forward to public school. I’d seen the public school kids every day in Boston. They seemed freer than us, not just in the way they dressed, but in their whole lives. That’s how Ross was; that’s how I wanted to be.” 

Joe recognizes that there is an exciting, unexplored world awaiting him in public schools that he will not experience in private school. His experiences with Ross have given him a taste, and he wants more. This desire foreshadows his willingness to forsake all wisdom and learning and make a deal with a dark, supernatural power.

“The main character, Faustus, is an expert at everything. He knows all there is to know about logic, philosophy, and even religion. But even though he’s the most brilliant guy alive, he’s miserable. He feels none of his knowledge amounts to anything. That’s a lot like my father.” 

Joe recognizes the similarity between the fictional Faustus and the real-life Dr. Faust, his father. As the story progresses, Joe’s own unfulfilled yearning for the one thing he cannot attain reveals he is much like the other two Fausts.

“At Eastside I was nobody. I was a new kid in school. I’d seen new kids come to Emerson and never catch on with anyone. They just moped through a semester or a year and disappeared. As I ate my sandwich, I wondered if that was going to happen to me. I decided it didn’t matter. I could just sit in the back of the class, take the grades that came my way, go home, listen to the stereo, and look out the window. I could survive a year of anything.”

Deuker captures the wistfulness of a teenager stuck in a place where he does not feel he belongs. Joe has no love of private schools and fears he is about to endure the isolation forced upon unknown, unpopular new students. He perceives it to be just a punishment he will have to endure.

“I could see what she meant and figured it wouldn’t hurt to tell her some other stuff. But once she got me started, I couldn’t stop. Practically every mean thing I’ve ever thought or heard about my father came spilling out. […] I told her everything. It was almost as if it wasn’t me talking, not really. It was as if some power had taken over and was speaking through me.” 

Surprised by a lovely young reporter for a tabloid paper, Joe is tricked into expressing every criticism of his father he ever felt. Then he paints his mother in an equally bad light. The strange force that takes hold of him in the moment parallels the almost supernatural power he acquires while playing basketball. The reader is meant to ask if it is the devil at work.

“Faustus has solved every problem, met every challenge. But there’s one thing he doesn’t have, can never have: unlimited power. He decides that since God made the world the way it is, God must want man to be unhappy. So Faustus turns his back on God and sells his soul to the devil for twenty-four years of power. Turning to the devil sounds crazy, but a part of me admired him for stepping over the edge, for breaking through the boundaries. For seventeen years my parents and teachers had been telling me to do the right thing, to do this and that. And most of the time I’d done it, or at least tried to. And where had it gotten me? I didn’t know what anything added up to. Faustus had the guts to try to find some answers, even if it meant going a different way. That couldn’t be all bad.” 

Joe is rationalizing here. He feels persecuted and sorry for himself after the tabloid story appeared, making his father and mother appear to be perverse, ungodly people. Feeling powerless and victimized, Joe longs for a way to gain control over his circumstances. For readers who believe the devil is a part of this story, it could be seen that it was the devil who causes Joe to speak to the reporter, thus playing into his hands.

“I kept quiet like everybody else, but I had the answer to that question, too. Everything had gone wrong for so long that I wanted one thing to go right. It might have seemed trivial to somebody else, and maybe it was, but what I wanted to go right was basketball. […] I wanted one season of glory. I didn’t care if it were only temporary, if it would all be forgotten by April. At least I’d have known greatness one time in my life. That would have been worth it.” 

When Miss Mitchell, the English teacher, asks the students who are studying Doctor Faustus what they would be willing to sell their souls for, there is a general agreement that nothing would be worth the price they would have to pay in return. Joe secretly acknowledges he would sell his soul for one glorious season of basketball. As with so many other naïve dreams, Joe does not recognize that nothing happens in a vacuum and there are many repercussions to getting what you ask for.

“What Ross had done was out of all proportion. It was no joke, and there was no way he could have thought it was. All at once I hated him. He was dangerous, malicious, violent. It felt good to hate him. It made everything clear as glass, and simple. But I couldn’t hold that hate for long. I kept thinking about all the times I’d gone along with him when I knew what he was doing was wrong, all the times when if I’d acted just a little differently, he might have acted differently, too. Suddenly I felt everything was really my fault. It was a feeling I couldn’t shake.”

After Joe watches as Ross and some other boys vandalize his house, he struggles with how his earlier acceptance of Ross’s misbehavior might have empowered him to commit this crime. This is a developmental stage for Joe in that he begins to allow himself to see people as not entirely good or bad, right or wrong.

“With each shot the mist thickened, the light grew dimmer. When the seventh shot whistled through, I knew the devil was tempting me. He was showing me the power of his world. […] It was an incredible feeling, to be able to do it all so effortlessly. I had to keep on being able to do it. I think that’s why I made the vow. ‘Give me a full season, give me twenty-four games of this power, and my soul is yours.’ […] Inside the gym all motion slowed. Up the ball went in a high arc. It seemed to stop and rest for a moment at the top, and only then did it hurtle down with a terrifying beauty. It was the perfect shot, the final swish, and as it whistled through the net I couldn’t help wondering if my soul had plunged into the devil’s camp for all eternity.” 

This is the passage describing the moment in the deserted, dark Ballard gym when Joe sells his soul to the devil. He is intoxicated by the power he thinks the devil is offering him, while at the same time he recognizes he is endangering himself in some lasting ways of which he is uncertain. If he has truly made a deal with the devil, he certainly has not read the fine print.

“Then I remembered an old episode of ‘The Twilight Zone.’ This playboy dies and goes to heaven. There are parties all the time. He drinks the best wine, always wins at poker, and gorgeous women put the make on him. Everything is perfect, so perfect that he gets bored. ‘I’d like to visit hell for a while,’ he says to the angel in charge. ‘It’s too dull here.’ ‘My friend,’ the angel says, ‘you are in hell.’” 

This passage expresses Joe’s spiritual revelation that getting exactly what a person wants in life, rather than being heaven on earth, may be quite the opposite of what they expect. Even as Joe proceeds to get what he wants, the stress he experiences, the ambiguity that permeates his feelings when he is not playing basketball and the uncertainty of what is going to happen when the short season is over make him miserable.

“I practiced for another thirty minutes. Once I calmed down I started to wonder if Ross could be right. Did I really hate my father? Maybe that was why I felt a little off whenever I saw his name in the paper, why I couldn’t stand the idea of going to Boston with him. A lot of things had gone wrong between us, and I hadn’t knocked myself out trying to make them go right.” 

After a heated argument with his parents over whether he can stay in Seattle and play basketball or must go with his parents to Boston for his father to receive the Lasker Award, Joe encounters Ross on the Loyal basketball court. Ross says he was actually doing Joe a favor by vandalizing his house because Joe really hates his dad. After the encounter, Joe wonders if Ross was right.

“I was feeling pretty good about the game, but as I left the locker room after the game the Hebrew Academy coach stopped me. ‘You played tremendous basketball, young man,” he said in a thick accent. ‘What inspires you? Can you tell me that?’ My ears went red. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘You play with such confidence, such knowledge. You look invincible, like you have some secret power. Do you have some secret power, young man?’ He smiled as he spoke, but I hurried to the car before he could say any more.” 

Another side of Joe’s supernatural emerging basketball ability is his understanding of what is happening in a game along with his skill at guiding his teammates to counter whatever their opponents try. This sense is fully revealed when he leads the team to an overwhelming victory in their first game against the Hebrew Academy. Afterward, the Hebrew coach accosts him, seeming to sense that Joe has some supernatural assistance. Rather than following through and perhaps learning what the coach might understand and have to say about his situation, Joe rushes away from him.

“I stared at each of the guys during that huddle and they all looked beaten. The fire was out, and they didn’t seem to care. I knew what was going on inside them because it was going on inside me. Being undefeated isn’t all fun. With every victory the pressure builds. A loss takes the pressure off. You lose your perfect season, but you can breathe again. The guys were ready to fold.” 

Having won more than 12 games in a row, Joe’s team has far exceeded the season’s expectations. Against Bellarmine, their toughest league opponent in an away game, Joe realizes the team is ready to give up for the first time. While he is initially not motivated to win, Joe then manages to lead the team to victory, feeling for the first time that he has accomplished this feat all on his own.

“When I was on the court, when it was actually happening, I didn’t think about where the magic came from. I just love having it. I felt a power and a strength flow through me that I never wanted to lose. I was aware of everything—the way the guys were breathing, the squeaking of their basketball shoes. Sometimes I thought I could even hear their heartbeats.” 

This passage comes from the description of the first game against Bellarmine, Eastside’s annual rivals that they have not defeated in 12 years. Joe’s basketball powers emerge fully in this game, where he takes charge and dominates. This passage is a further expansive description of Joe’s immersion into the essence and flow of basketball. His use of the word “magic” reflects back to Joe’s belief that Magic Johnson is the greatest of all basketball players, someone who lives in the zone while he is on the court.

“The whole time we were in the hospital, the whole time I sat in the chair staring at my father, I kept thinking that somehow his heart attack had to be tied in with that promise in the old gym—and that somehow I had to find a way to call the whole thing off. But how do you go back on a deal you’re not sure you ever made? And I wasn’t sure, not completely. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.” 

Well into his season of glory, Joe is at last confronted with the potential payment the devil might exact—his father’s death. This scenario mirrors the class’s discussion about why Faustus did not repent: He had gotten so far into the deal with the devil that he lost his power to seek mercy; he had the power to do anything except ask for forgiveness. The irony is that, if Joe is experiencing any punishment, it is his fear that he has harmed his father.

“I stood up. There were only two lights left on in the gym, and as I started to walk across the court to get my stuff, I saw the shadow of the backboard against the gray wall. It was just like the shadow in the old gym at Ballard. The excitement drained right out of me. I would have given anything to go back in time, then, back to November 16 and obliterate those ten perfect shots from my life.” 

Approached by Eastern Washington University and offered a basketball scholarship, Joe realizes that a dream he always found unattainable is within his grasp. As he stands to leave the gym, however, the shadows remind him of what he had done to achieve his basketball skills, and his euphoria is replaced with regret and dread.

“Was that what I was doing? What that why I’d worked myself to death in the morning, so that we’d lose the game and I wouldn’t have to worry about having to pay off the devil? I looked at the faces of my teammates then—at the guys who were on the court and the guys on the bench. […] All that work going down the drain because I was dogging it, off in some dreamland of my own. It wasn’t fair. I had to play, no matter what the consequences might be. There was no other way.” 

Joe here has been confronted by his coach late in the last game of the regular season because he has not been performing up to his standard. Joe realizes he had subconsciously been hoping to lose the game, preempting a perfect season and preventing the devil from collecting his debt. He must choose between trying to outsmart the devil and letting down his teammates and realizes he cannot intentionally fail those he has led to the cusp of a perfect season.

“Late that night in bed I suddenly felt free. I didn’t have to solve anything. My father was alive. The twenty-four games had been played. The devil’s work—if he had done any—was over. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but I knew one thing: for the first time in a long time, I was totally on my own. It was an incredible feeling.”

Realizing that his alleged contract with the devil has been concluded and that the punishment he assumed he would suffer—the death of his father—did not occur, Joe is incredibly relieved, though he expresses that he does not know what to expect. The irony is that, while he was succeeding tremendously on the basketball court, he was wracked with guilt and uncertainty about what the devil might make him suffer, which could be perceived as the devil’s due.

“There were times when I thought I had the slump beat. I’d sink four or five free throws in a row, and then take the ball off the line and try to put down a few running jumpers. But the feel didn’t come back. I’d start thinking about all the parts of my shot, and once I did that I was through. You can’t think about form and shoot at the same time. That’s being mechanical, and machines don’t have touch.” 

Once the perfect regular season is over, Joe assumes the supernatural abilities he has had with the basketball will disappear. Accordingly, he loses his “touch.” In this passage, he describes trying to think his way back into the zone of outstanding play. This is a great explanation of why athletes cannot think themselves out of slumps.

“Everything was a mystery to me—most of all myself. Five hours earlier I hadn’t wanted to take the court. Now I had the perfect excuse to stay out of the games, and more than anything I wanted to play. I tried to be logical. I went to my desk, took out a piece of paper, and wrote down all the reasons I was sure I’d sold my soul to the devil. Then I wrote down all the reasons why I couldn’t possibly have sold my soul. The two sides balanced. I crumpled up the paper and threw it in the trash.” 

After Joe knocks himself out in the first tournament game and his team wins, he realizes that any arrangement he had with the devil has concluded and he has no idea what will happen. Freed after his perfect and very anxious season, Joe realizes he wants to play unencumbered basketball more than anything.

“As we pulled away from Shadle Park and took that final step into the championship game, I felt ashamed. I’d been so wrapped up in myself that I’d been blind to the team. I’d believed that without me they couldn’t win, that they were nothing. But it was the other way around.” 

Still recovering from his concussion, Joe must sit on the bench and root for his team in the semi-final of the state championship. They turn to him for insight into the other team, then use his strategy to win. He recognizes afterward that all the victories they accumulated were not merely a result of his deal with the devil.

“As we huddled before going back onto the court, I looked in John’s eyes, in Eddie’s eyes, in Alex’s, and Maier’s. All I saw was fury. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘this is the championship game and we’ve done everything but play basketball.’ When we took the court, I went straight over to Ross and shook his hand. After that I went to each of the Loyal High players and shook hands. I’m sure it looked like Goody Two-Shoes grandstanding, but I didn’t care. Enough was enough.”

Joe asserts himself for the first time as a leader not just of his own time, but also as the person who calms an entire coliseum of unruly fans after several fights have broken out. Even Coach Raible was instigating the disharmony. This moment marks the completion of Joe’s transition from an outsider to a complete leader.