Joseph's skin had been turned blue when he was a boy because of repeated ingestion of silver nitrate, thought to be an effective medication at the time. He had been given this medication to cure his "nervousness" and bed-wetting at a late age, and Joseph simply attributed all the side effects to not ingesting enough. Handicapped by this disfigurement, Joseph eventually made a life for himself at Ruby Pier.Joseph is a "middle-aged man with narrow, stooped shoulders, naked from the waist up. His belly sagged over his belt. His hair was closely cropped. His lips were thin and his face was long and drawn."[6] He dies of a heart attack because of Eddie, when Eddie tried to get a ball off the streets and causes him to swerve his car to avoid hitting Eddie