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The summer before fourth grade, Jughead learns how to swim down in the lake. There’s a swim team at school and he’s not planning on joining in but Archie is and he doesn’t wanna have to learn alone, so they make a day out of it. FP drives the five of them out, he and Jellybean and Archie and Archie’s dad, and they bring some sandwiches they made out of whatever Fred had in the fridge and they learn how to swim.
It’s not anything to write home about. FP used to say the lake was just as good as the beach, maybe even better because there wasn’t sand everywhere or a million tourists, even though Jughead doesn’t know if he’d ever been to the beach in his life. (Maybe once in high school, he thinks, FP slumped on the couch going on about some trip he took with Fred.) Point is, it’s not as good as the beach — Jughead’s never been to one but he’s seen enough beaches on TV to know they don’t have near as many mosquitos and there’s a lot more sun —but it’s not bad.
FP just straight up tosses him into the lake, because this is before he falls down the stairs and costs his parents a lot of money on a hearing aid, and Jughead screeches and FP just laughs at him, all light and happy, and ruffles his hair and shows him a vague imitation of a breaststroke he never formally learned. Archie’s good at it, takes to it like he takes to every sport except tennis. Jughead says it’s probably ‘cause he had a better teacher, and FP splashes water at him and Archie defends his honor and splashes back and they all go from there.
It’s nothing special, and they put on bug spray too soon before getting in the water so he gets bitten a few too many times, but it’s not bad.
Archie joins the swim team that year and Jughead doesn’t, and that works out fine because next year he falls down the stairs and busts his ear and costs his parents a lot of money on a hearing aid, and next year he hears his mom whispering furiously at his dad in the kitchen, where’d you get that money from, FP? i thought you weren’t involved with them anymore, and his dad whispering back what else was I supposed to do? what else could we have done? and Gladys not saying anything back because that was when money was starting to get low — they’d never had a lot of it, but his mom had never poured over the taxes on the kitchen counter as often as she was doing these days. Point is, he goes to all of the meets and watches Archie swim even though it doesn’t help anyone, but Archie says he likes the support so whatever, it’s not like he’s doing anything else on his Saturday mornings.
That fall, after the lake but far before the stairs, Dad and Mr A build a treehouse in the backyard. Construction’s going well enough that they can afford to borrow some wood and some nails and whatever else they need. They make a week out of it. Fall Break, so he and Archie are off school, and they make lemonade — pink lemonade, ‘cause Dad hates the normal kind because of ‘a bad high school party’ that Jughead will probably eventually hear about — and help carrying shit around and make sure Jellybean doesn’t hurt herself on all the shark stuff lying in the grass. She’d always been a curious little thing. Crawled under tables and squeezed behind counters because she wanted to see everything.
Jughead doesn’t remember if he had asked for a treehouse, if he’d seen one somewhere and said that looks cool or what. Just that his dad looked happy as he ever did when he and Mr A did this kind of thing together. Splashing water at each other down at the lake like they were the kids instead, and Dad daring Mr A to toss the hammer at him because he knows he can catch it, c’mon Fred, don’t be chicken shit, and don’t say that in from of the kids, FP, jesus, but throwing the hammer anyways because they could always goad each other into dumb stuff.
Lucky Gladys wasn’t here to see that , Fred says after they’re done laughing at the fact that Dad almost dropped it on his foot, she would’ve had a heart attack.
Something loaded in the words, enough that Jughead can feel it at eight years old. Dad’s smile doesn’t fall, but it falters a bit.
Not my fault you’re a bad pitcher, he says, a little bit of tension behind the words.
You don’t play baseball with construction tools, Dad, Jughead cuts in then, because it feels like he has to do something.
Mr A laughs and Dad huffs and cuffs the back of his head and says you don’t know the first thing about baseball.
I know it’s got the word ball in it, he says, and that you’re not good at it.
The kid’s right, F, Mr A says laughing again. Dad cuffs him a little harder and says something about respecting your elders, but the tension is gone. Archie comes back from whatever he was doing, scrambles outside and asks if the treehouse was done yet, like he doesn’t have eyes and the ability to use them.
Point is, they build the treehouse. It’s not a huge thing, but it’s not tiny either. There’s enough room for Jughead and Archie to sit spread out and Jellybean to squeeze inside, too. Dad and Mr A lean back in their lawn chairs with the tired creak of a job well done; Dad’s hands are dirty but he cracks open a beer and the condensation from the bottles washes them off a little bit. It’s a weird thought to have. Mr A glances down at it, eyebrows raised just a little bit, but Dad raises them right back and takes a long sip and says I haven’t had one in weeks, Fred, gimme a break.
Alright, alright, Mr A says, something tired but fond, the way he talks to his wife or Mom talks to Dad. He reaches for a beer too and it weird to see Archie’s dad drink so he focuses on Archie telling him about the video game he wants for Christmas instead.
Does your dad drink very much? he asks a little later. He doesn’t know why he asks, but he doesn’t know why he does a lot of things.
Archie scrunches his face up a little and says I dunno. I don’t think so. Why?
Jughead shrugs. Dad used to drink a lot when he was younger, enough that it was a Thing. Or at least, he thinks it was; nobody ever talked about it, and certainly not to him, but he used to drink a lot and he was always really loud and now he doesn’t as much anymore and he’s quieter. Not quiet like Mr A is quiet, or Archie’s Neighbor Betty is quiet, but not as loud as before.
I don’t know, he says. He can’t imagine Mr A drinking a lot and getting loud. Just wondering.
Archie has always been more attuned than people give him credit for, but he doesn’t say anything else.
I hope it doesn’t break, he says about the treehouse.
It won’t, Jughead says, they know how to make houses, even though he’s not sure treehouses count.
It doesn’t break, no matter how much weight they put on it, he and Archie and Jelly and Betty sometimes, no matter how many books or toys or sleeping bags they carry up and never get around to tossing back down. They make a pulley out of string, a bucket and a wheel from a toy fire truck and stick it out the window. It can only carry little things without actually breaking, but they think it’s the coolest shit ever.
The treehouse is the place Jughead sneaks out to when he doesn’t wanna listen to his parents argue and it’s the place Archie kisses him in sixth grade, just to see what it’s like, and it’s the place they can’t visit anymore because they lose the house and have to move into the trailer Dad lived in after high school before he met Mom, and by then Dad and Mr A aren’t talking anymore.
But all that stuff comes afterwards. They convince their parents to let them sleep out there the night it’s finished, toss their pillows up through the window and spread out as much as they can. Archie’s taller than him at this point, so his feet touch the other end of the wall and Jughead’s don’t.
Archie’s mom is afraid it might rain, even though it’s barely been cloudy all week. It doesn’t rain, thank god, because the book Jughead brought out with him is from the library and he doesn’t wanna have to pay for a new copy if he gets it wet.
It’s calm and light in a way that reminds him of the lake. Dad laughs with Mr A in a way he doesn’t laugh with anyone else, not even with Mom. Which should say something, maybe, but Jughead doesn’t care enough to read into it. He just knows that when his dad is happy, things are nice and easy and calm and he gets to learn how to swim or sleep in a treehouse, and it’s better than the way his dad looks talking about money, all stress lines and sad eyes, or the way he talks after he gets fired, like he’s been betrayed or forgotten about.
It’s like, there’s a point where his dad was happy, and there’s the tipping point to where he suddenly wasn’t anymore. He thinks about it a lot, but he can’t for the life of him decide where that tipping point was. Whether it was getting fired or losing the house or even at Mr A’s wedding that he didn’t go to — didn’t have the fuckin guts to go, he slurs, and Jughead wishes he didn’t have to hear these things but he’s afraid that if he leaves his dad might trip over a sock and die, didn’t have the strength, even though he came for mine; I was s’posed to be his best man, you know that? didn’t even show up.
These little days he likes to wrap up and keep under his pillow are days when his dad is still happy. Dunking Mr A’s head under the water and laughing like a teenager, holding a plank of wood sideways while Mr A hammers in a nail in their backyard.
The point is, he and Archie sleep in the treehouse and his feet don’t touch the other end because he isn’t tall enough yet, and it doesn’t rain but it does get chilly enough that they press close together so their fingers don’t freeze off because they refuse to give up and go inside. Archie gives off body heat like a radiator, anyways, so there’s no reason to admit defeat.
Archie says what if it breaks while we’re sleeping?
And Jughead doesn’t roll his eyes even if he wants to because he doesn’t wanna make Archie feel bad for being scared. It won’t break, he tells him again. We don’t have to stay out here if you don’t want to.
No , Archie insists, I want to.
It doesn’t break while they’re sleeping, and when they wake up Archie’s not afraid of it anymore.
And anyways, his dad isn’t happy when Jughead falls down the stairs and busts his ear and has to go to the ER — they don’t go to the actual hospital, because everyone knows even a little trip is expensive and they don’t have the money for that right now, just the little emergency clinic that Jughead’s been going to since he was little.
He doesn’t remember why he fell down the stairs. He was probably doing something stupid, like he usually is, and tripped, and maybe he was shoved but it was his own fault he fell. They only have one flight of stairs, but it curves a little bit at the end. He hits hard and his ear is ringing and ringing and won’t stop no matter how still he stays or much his dad shakes him. He’s saying something but Jughead can’t hear him over the ringing. His eyes are blown wide and afraid. He’s never seen his dad afraid like that, and it makes him afraid.
At that point he’s still small enough that his dad can scoop him up and rush to the car and speed to the emergency clinic, trying his best not to jostle his head. Jughead is scared enough that he just lets him do it. He thinks that maybe if he just holds still enough, if he makes himself very small and very quiet, then maybe the ringing will stop and he can go home.
It stops eventually stop, but he doesn’t go home until they’ve gone to the actual hospital, the expensive one that they don’t have the money for but have to pay for anyways.
His dad keeps a hand on him through the whole thing, on his shoulder or his wrist or clutching his hand tight until Archie gets there and takes his hand instead. It’s all very dramatic, like something out of a Grey's Anatomy episode, except he doesn’t have to get dangerous heart surgery. From the look on his parents’ faces, you would think he was dying, but he’s not, and he doesn’t. He gets a piece of metal to curl around his ear, the cheapest one they can find, and then that’s it. It’s fine, they can go home, and the cheapest working hearing aid they can find is still far from cheap.
His dad doesn’t laugh through any of that, even when Mr A comes by to drop off some dinner so Mom doesn’t have to strain herself, so maybe that was the tipping point. Maybe it was the beginning of it. Maybe there were a lot of tipping points instead of one, and Jughead just didn’t notice all of them.
Point is, it’s lucky that he didn’t join the swim team last year because he would have to drop out of it anyways. The day down at the lake won’t be anything more than that because he can only swim if he takes the aid out and taking it out in public makes him paranoid. The treehouse is still up, even if his mom is afraid he’ll fall again. He’s not stupid, Gladys, his dad will say, if he falls, he falls, it’ll be his own fault.
His dad drinks more and smiles less and a year or so later Fred fires him from the company they started together.
The night before they leave the house, Archie sneaks down the block and into the treehouse even though their dads aren’t talking anymore. By then, Mrs Andrews has left for Chicago.
My dad said you’re moving, Archie says into the dark. The porch light isn’t on like it would usually be, because neither of them are supposed to be out here.
Yeah , Jughead says, we are.
Oh . Are we still gonna be in the same class?
Jughead almost just gives up and says no, because they’re gonna be outside the school district which means going back to his old elementary school, but he thinks Archie might know that already. I don’t know, he says instead. I hope so.
Quiet. The sound of a car passing by. It feels like the world’s been going and going nonstop the past few years, the lake and the treehouse and the stairs and now they’re here again, and it’s all come grinding to a stop. Dad doesn’t have his job anymore and come morning they won’t have the house, which means no more days at the lake and no more treehouse. He wonders if it’ll get torn down.
My dad’s not mad at you, Archie says eventually.
What? Jughead asks, startled.
My dad, Archie repeats. I know he — he fired your dad because of some stuff, I don’t know. But he’s not mad at you for it.
Did he tell you that? he almost asks. He doesn’t like the idea of Mr A being mad at him at all.
Thanks, Arch, he says. He wants to say my dad isn’t mad at you, either, but he isn’t so sure. He’s taken to frowning whenever the Andrews family is mentioned at all, so Jughead’s taken to not mentioning them.
You’ll still come over, right? Archie asks. His voice is very small, like he’s the one who’s uprooting everything and moving tomorrow morning. But by now Mrs Andrews is gone for Chicago. Jughead doesn’t wanna be the next one gone, so he says yeah, for sure. I won’t be moving very far.
You’re gonna be on the other side of town, Archie whines, that’s far.
It’s not far compared to like, a bigger town. I could be going to a different state or something. That’d be far.
A lot of the time it seems like nobody ever moves to a different state. If they move at all, they move down the block, or if they lose a house they move to the other side of town instead of somewhere far away. That’s just how this town is. ( Good fuckin’ riddance, his dad says tomorrow morning, never liked it over here anyways.)
Still , Archie sighs. Jughead thinks he might be playing up the dramatics to keep the cool air out.
I’ll still come over, he promises.
They end up falling asleep in the treehouse, because Archie is hesitant to go home and Jughead is hesitant to be alone. Archie’s still taller than him at this point, but Jughead’s grown enough that the tips of his feet touch the other end of the wall when they spread out now. It hasn’t been cloudy all week, so they don’t have to worry about rain, which is good because even the cheapest hearing aid they could find wasn’t all that cheap.
Summer’s just barely ending, so it isn’t cold but it isn’t too hot, either. They don’t need to press close so their fingers don’t freeze off, but they do anyways because Jughead is moving tomorrow and he doesn’t even know if they’re gonna be in the same class anymore. It’s not like anyone’s here to see, anyways.
What if it breaks while we’re sleeping? Archie asks, hand curled around Jughead’s wrist.
It won’t, Jughead says, but they lost the house and he busted his ear and Dad and Mr A have been friends since high school and now they’re not, so Jughead isn’t so sure anymore.