On the Devil's Court

Joe devotes Chapter 2 to his mother, Ella Frank Faust, who is a beautiful and shapely redhead. A successful artist before marrying Dr. Faust, she is a “sculptress” who has come to specialize in sculpting naked men. He describes his fourth-grade experience of bursting in on her to show her a rare good grade he made in arithmetic only to find her sculpting a naked, hairy man. Joe relates that he chose the attic for his bedroom in the new Seattle house so he did not have to encounter any of her naked models.

Joe expresses his acquired admiration for Magic Johnson, whom he considers the greatest of all time. A poster of Johnson is on the ceiling above his bed. He remains inside the new house for the first week, then has to go outside because his parents pester him to start a new life.

On a Monday, Joe heads to the basketball courts by Loyal High School, where he warms up and waits for action. He describes his love of playing basketball in intimate terms. Loyal is a public school, a high school he really wants to attend. He believes the level of competition will be much greater and is excited but apprehensive. When eight kids show up to play a pickup game, Joe waits anxiously for his turn to get into the game.

When one of the boys in the pickup game gets injured, Joe takes his place. He makes the acquaintance of an equally talented boy named Ross who is 6’2” like Joe. Ross was on the opposite team and carried them. Joe helped even the sides, and his team eventually won. Ross announces they will be on the same team starting the next day.

Joe is surprised that, though they are always on the same team, Ross and he do not dominate. They seem perpetually out of sync. Losing bothers Joe a lot more than Ross, who always remains playful. The opposing team is anchored by John, who plays solid if not flashy basketball. John’s team wins most of the games.

Joe describes Ross as the heart of the basketball group, although nobody knows when or where Ross will show up. After missing a Saturday without saying a word, he appears on Sunday, and he and Joe have their best game as teammates.

Ross asks Joe if he can borrow his parents’ car for a surprise trip at 10 pm that night. After having Joe drive him into an unknown neighborhood in a different part of Seattle, Ross admits he was fired from his caddy job at the golf course for sitting in the wrong place. He sneaks onto the golf course with two cans of spray paint and writes obscene graffiti in several places. Joe refuses to help him but serves as a lookout. When the night watchman discovers them, they run away and hide in bushes along one fairway, narrowly avoiding getting caught. After they leave, Joe is furious, but he gradually calms enough to laugh and joke about the episode.

Joe reflects on his life at the outset of this chapter. Even though he is enjoying his new friends, basketball, and the leisure of summer, he is not happy. His father perpetually nags him about going to his alma mater, Stanford. Joe knows he cannot academically qualify. He did poorly on the PSAT exams, which his father attributed to him not feeling well. He is excited about the possibility of going to school with public school kids. His view of public-school kids in Boston was, “They seemed freer than us, not just in the way they dressed but in their whole lives” (18). His father intends to send him to a private school, Eastside Academy. He brings the summer reading books home and leaves them outside Joe’s door. Joe is only intrigued by The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus since his name is Faust. Though he is put off by the old English language, he is taken with an illustration of Faustus inside a pentagram with the devil outside of it. Joe stages the book by his bed, pretending to read it.

Joe’s parents are suspiciously curious about his friendship with Ross. Joe does not want to introduce him to his folks because Ross would never conceal his attitude. In August, Joe’s parents throw a dinner party and invite one of his dad’s colleagues who has a son Joe’s age. Joe loathes dinner parties and the idea of his dad trying to find him another lame friend. Joe is surprised when the boy who comes with his parents is the basketball player John Lustik. The boys excuse themselves to go to the basketball court, where they play horse. John hates to lose and keeps challenging Joe to rematches. During dinner, Joe’s dad asks John to tell Joe about Eastside Academy. Later, Joe’s dad brings up Ross, whom John dislikes. John calls Ross a criminal and advises Joe to stay away from him. Joe cusses out John and is sent to his room, which is exactly what he hoped would happen. Joe picks up the Doctor Faustus book and pays more attention to it. He wonders if he is a descendant of Dr. Faustus.

Grounded for a week by his father, Joe resorts to watching the basketball games out his bedroom window. He sees Ross and John on the courts like two opposing generals facing off against each other. On the last day of his grounding, Joe’s father makes him commit to trying to become John’s friend.

Joe returns to the basketball court, playing with Ross against John. John’s team wins virtually all of the games. John invites Joe to come to his house that evening, but Ross spirits him away. Joe says maybe they can go to his house another time, but it never happens. Joe feels the end of summer at hand.

Joe’s parents tell him they are going to tour both high schools and then select one for Joe to attend. Though Joe tries to promote Loyal, the trip is disastrous, topped off by the principal failing to show up for their meeting. Though the private school is larger, it reminds Joe of Emerson, the school he attended in Boston. His parents are impressed by the school and the principal, though they never look at Joe for approval. Once back home, the conversation descends into a shouting match between Joe and his father, finally interrupted by his mother, who has a male model coming. She says they should sleep on the matter and decide the next day.

Joe hears his parents arguing that night in their bedroom. His mother comes into his room and asks him to be honest about why he wants to attend Loyal. He explains how important it would be for him to play in the Metro League to see how good he might be. She quizzes him about his friendship with Ross, and Joe promises not to allow Ross to lead him astray. She tells Joe a story about her mother refusing to allow her to wear a revealing dress to her senior ball and says her mother made a mistake. The next morning, his parents allow him to make his own decision, and he immediately chooses Loyal. They make him promise to be trustworthy. His father commends him for reading Doctor Faustus.

That morning Joe is incredibly excited. His basketball skills are greater than ever. As his team is about to beat John’s team, Joe steals the ball and slam dunks the last shot, something he has never done before. The others are in awe. In response, Ross takes the basketball and dunks it for the first time as well, robbing a bit of the glory from Joe.

Beaten up by the basketball game, Joe decides to stay at home for a day and focuses on Doctor Faustus. In describing Dr. Faustus as a learned, miserable, dissatisfied person, Joe says he perceives him to be like his father, who has achieved a great many scientific accomplishments but is still “depressed.” The next day after playing basketball, Joe gets invited to a party Ross is having that promises to be wilder than anything Joe has experienced. He and his friends in Boston were “well chaperoned.” For Joe, the trick is how to get his parents to let him out of the house. Joe announces he is going to the party, and his parents say they want to invite Ross’s parents over to meet them. Joe makes up a story that Ross’s dad is a drinker who is out of work. His parents insist on meeting Ross. Ross is his usual self when he shows up for lunch on Saturday, 45 minutes late. He only engages in conversation with Joe’s parents when they ask about Loyal since he is excited about their basketball prospects. He scoffs aloud when they ask him if he is going to college.

Joe goes to the party at Ross’s house and immediately begins to drink. He meets a beautiful girl named Karen and ends up talking to her for several hours. Eventually, he becomes so nauseated that he bursts through the front door, vomits in the yard, and passes out. He has a vague awareness of the police showing up. They give him a ride home in a police car, and he wakes up the next morning in his bed. When he goes downstairs, his parents inform him that he will attend Eastside. They forbid him from ever seeing Ross again. Later in the afternoon, he takes his basketball and goes to Loyal to shoot. Ross shows up. Joe apologizes for being the person whose behavior caused the police to break up the party. Ross is unperturbed. Joe tells him his parents are making him go to Eastside. Ross tells him the choice of schools is up to him since he is 17. He pressures Joe to stand up to his parents. Joe wants to take his advice but cannot bring himself to follow through.