When you live by yourself and are faced with problems that you have to manage on your own, it isn't easy. Bruce Wallace shows how Jay goes through life, living by himself and dealing with problems on his own in the novel Playing without the Ball. In the novel we find out that Jay is living by himself in an apartment overtop a bar he works three nights a week. He enjoys playing basketball at the "Y" every so often. He has some friends he hangs around with of the church league and his closest, Spit. Jay is confused in his last year of high school, but playing on the church league brightens his mind more and the perfect girl he met the first time things didn't go good, gives him a second chance. In this novel Jay has to make a number of decisions on his own that dramatically affect his future. He has to deal with the fact that he is living on his own and is responsible for his actions, hanging around with the right crowd of friends, and picking the right girl.
             As we see in the beginning of the novel, Jay is living by himself on top of bar. After problems arose with Jays parents when he was young, his mother left him with his father, and recently his father left him for a new job/life in California. "I sleep on a mattress in the corner, I can't afford a bed yet. When I moved in, in September I was 17. I'd never had sex, never used drugs, never forgiven my mother, never been to church and never been a basketball star". (Wallace, 4). This shows how Jay tries to pursue life on his own and maintain him self with little help. The fact of working at night during the time when friends like to hang out going to work is another decision Jay makes. "I get free rent, working it off in Shorty's kitchen making burgers and sandwiches three nights a week" (Wallace, 4). This shows Jays responsibility and ambition to go to work, because if he didn't go to work he would have no money and no place to stay....