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The cursor blinked at him offensively as Jughead wracked his brain for a story that didn’t rely on betrayal as a twist ending. He’d written it before, hundreds of times, and it would read stale even if it still felt raw for him. He was too young to become a one trick pony. No one would read another story with the same ending, despite the different context.
Well, maybe they would. People read the same thing over and over again all the time.
But it wasn’t the writer he wanted to be.
It wasn’t the person he wanted to be.
At this point he had stopped fooling himself into thinking it wasn’t all about her. It was such a cliche to write out the betrayal he felt over and over again, but he understood enough about basic psychology to see what was going on.
There’s no way through it except through it.
He closed his eyes and groaned, rubbing his hands through his hair and replacing his beanie, which had made a strong resurgence as the cool fall weather started rolling in and as he found himself generally needing more comfort.
He didn’t need to open his eyes to reach out and grab the mug of coffee with his left hand and repeatedly press the backspace button with his right, so he didn’t.
The soundtrack at Pop’s was always the same this late on a weeknight. The sound of flatware clattering against plates. The rush of the Hobart in the back as it efficiently removed all burger remnants from the dishes. There wasn’t much talking- just one cook and one waitress moving smoothly through the well practiced choreography of the night shift. The booths were mostly empty and the ones that weren’t had occupants who understood the value of a quiet diner at night.
Jughead was at the counter tonight. He was only here for the coffee and didn’t want someone to have to clean up a table after he left. It was unlikely anyone he cared much about would show up that evening. Besides, it wasn’t like he was writing anything he wasn’t just going to delete before he left.
He set his mug down and leaned his head on his hand as he continued his steady deleting.
The ding of the front door signaled someone was coming or going, but it wasn’t interesting enough to open his eyes yet. He found himself almost wishing he had a headache so he had an excuse to keep them closed longer, rather than just this feeling of not-quite-but-close-to worthlessness.
Somewhere to his right, he heard a man’s low drawl ask for a cup of coffee and slice of cherry pie. Jughead looked up just as the waitress pulled out a mug and asked the man where he was from.
“Well, everywhere and nowhere, really.” He chuckled at her as she lifted an eyebrow at him, clearly not charmed by strangers as late night philosophers.
“I’ve been driving for the better part of two decades, ma’am. I’m not trying to put you off.”
She visibly relaxed and he took a sip of his coffee, not breaking eye contact with her.
“Now that’s just a wonderful cup of coffee. Thank you.”
The trucker’s face was gentle, but confusingly ageless. He could have been thirty five or fifty and Jughead would have believed it. Some parts of him were a walking cliche. The classic trucker style hat and logoed work jacket, the faded blue jeans and work boots, a carabiner with keys but no distinguishing keychains. But something about him stood out to Jughead.
As he watched the scene unfold between The Trucker and The Waitress, a new story started taking root in his mind.
Obviously he wasn’t going to get much more from this specific interaction. Peggy had been waitressing the night shift at Pop’s for years. She had two kids at home in Sunnyside Trailer Park, a husband who stayed on the right side of the law, and a container garden. This wasn’t anything more than strangers comfortably passing in the night for them, but it might be a spark of the story he was looking for.
But he needed a little more.
Jughead turned towards the stranger and gently closed his laptop, pushing it a little to the side. “Everyone’s from somewhere” he said, hoping to prompt a few more details. Anything really. He could change it, but it helped when it came from somewhere real.
Maybe it was the warmth of the Pop’s atmosphere. Maybe Jughead was just a little more convincingly friendly than he thought himself. Or maybe the Trucker was just comfortable (or lonely?) enough to take the bait.
“Well,” the trucker looked thoughtful as he opened his rolled up flatware and plunged his fork into the slice of pie in front of him, “I suppose I was at some point, but after twenty years on the road it does tend to feel like the more truthful answer is the one I gave.”
Jughead nodded. The tranquility in the trucker’s voice was convincing. Enticing. He thought about a way to write it, to portray it as he was experiencing it now. It felt like he was talking to an old time cowboy or a monk rather than a resident of the lonely highway. Watching the man eat his pie and drink his coffee slowly, comfortably, Jughead could feel his wise and weathered voice-of-reason character taking shape.
“So, I have to ask,” Jughead started, leaning his head to rest on his hand, elbow on the bar, fully facing The Trucker now. “What’s it like, being a trucker? Do you like it?” He debated how far he wanted to take this. He didn’t think it felt like an interrogation yet, and this guy was passing through so did it really matter? But he felt an innate respect for a man so at ease in his own skin and didn’t want to risk souring the interaction. It was something he aspired to, himself.
“Are you happy?” Jughead finally asked.
The Trucker looked up at Jughead as he sipped his coffee. “Well isn’t that just the quick of life, right there.”
Jughead quirked a grin. It wasn’t an answer and it was. The quick, the marrow, the center, the meaning. The character details and flourishes were filling in all on their own.
The trucker was scraping the little bits of pie into a bite. “You know, kid, the mysteries of life can be solved anywhere. By anyone.” He waved Peggy over to get a refill on his coffee.
She filled Jughead’s again as well, without question.
“Next refill is going to be decaf, Jug.” She said as she walked back into the kitchen.
Jughead rolled his eyes and called after her. “You would do me dirty like that, Peg? After all this time we’ve spent together?”
She shot a little dagger glance at him over her shoulder. But then she smiled. An easy tease between long time acquaintances.
Jughead looked back at the trucker, who was smiling at the exchange. He followed up, feeling emboldened by the easy banter and familiar atmosphere. “So what are the answers to life’s mysteries?”
The Trucker was stretching his arms out and clasped them behind his head as Jughead asked. He looked at Jughead questioningly, and then shrugged and looked back at his coffee. No doubt this wasn’t what he was expecting when he chose The Town With Pep! as his late night pitstop.
“You know, I found inspiration in someone else's words a long time ago, and they’ve served me ever since.” He smiled to himself and paused, like he wasn’t quite sure how well his answer would be received, but then he shrugged and continued on. “It’s faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, and more money.”
Jughead blinked.
The Trucker looked back at his coffee and reached for the cream, seemingly not waiting for a response.
“That’s…. It. That’s it, huh?” Jughead felt the philosopher facade he had built up in his head had cracked a little bit. “Faster horses, younger women?”
“Older whiskey, more money.” The Trucker finished the line, and chuckled as he pulled a few bills from his wallet and left them next to his neatly stacked dishes.
“Well, I’m a writer so I’m all about metaphor, but doesn’t that feel a little,” he paused, gesturing aimlessly, “I don’t know. Too shallow to be the meaning of life?”
“In all your years, you’ve found something that rings truer, have you?” The trucker shrugged and looked at Jughead, which only spurred him on. He felt himself getting a little heated. This guy wasn’t from here, but growing up in Riverdale did put a lot more life in your years, it seemed.
“I mean, life is about finding meaning, right? Real meaning. Putting all of yourself into your passion, your art, whatever that is, and seeing what you’re really made of when you give everything you have to it.”
He looked at The Trucker, entreating him to go a little deeper, but didn’t get any response.
“It’s about finding what sets your soul on fire. Burning brightly, and all that.” he trailed off.
The Trucker had stood up and pushed his chair in during Jughead’s verging-on-embarrassing-rant and adjusted his hat.
“You know, that stuff’s all well and good.” He walked over and put a hand on Jughead’s shoulder. “But I think you’re lying to yourself, kid.” And he gave Jughead a meaningful look, a final pat on the shoulder, and started walking towards the door, nodding a thank you at Peggy when she walked by.
Jughead watched him open the door and look out at the parking lot.
He smiled and looked back towards the counter. “Is that your bike?”
The parking lot was relatively empty and Jughead was the only one wearing in Pop’s wearing leather, so it was a logical guess.
“Yep.” Jughead nodded.
The Trucker nodded and looked back over the parking lot. He let out a sigh and looked back again, raising an eyebrow at Jughead. “Faster horses, kid.”
And then he was gone.
Twenty minutes and one more threat of decaf later, Jughead was outside strapping his bag onto the back of his bike still feeling a little annoyed at the oversimplified, character stifling response The Trucker had given.
But then he looked at the bike and thought about what he felt when he was riding.
He thought about the itch he felt when he first pulled the tarp off the old CB550.
Sigh .
Faster horses.
The younger women thing felt like a bit more of a stretch, but love, passion, companionship. He could see that. He thought about her of course. Her companionship, their teamwork, and tried to hold in the little shudder that always came over him when he thought about their physicality.
Having a someone.
(But, more specifically, having her as a someone. No one else ever felt like they gave the same thrill elicited by the metaphorical “younger women” advice. Not ever.)
Older whiskey was even harder, as someone surrounded by the deadly disease of alcoholism and all the negative externalities that go along with it. But he waded through the metaphor and could understand the need for pleasures. That taking pleasure and enjoyment were a logical, albeit basic, necessity of life according to The Trucker’s philosophy.
More Money.
Well, yeah. Didn’t that make everything else easier.
He thought about The Trucker, driving for almost twenty years, claiming a home as “everywhere and nowhere” and seemingly content with his lot.
Jughead knew life wasn’t really that simple. It was one person’s perspective, and perhaps compass, but not wholly realistic when set against the stuff of life.
But what if it was?
He grabbed the handle bar of his bike. His faster horse.
One out of four wasn’t great.
It wasn’t nothing, though. It could be a start.
As he rounded the corner on Elm Street and slowed to a stop in front of the white house with the red door, he figured he would give it a try. At least for a while.
If it didn’t work out, he always had depressed brooding to fall back on.
She walked out the front door and hopped down the steps until she was just out of arms reach, pulling her jean jacket over her shoulders and her hair up in a ponytail as she descended.
He didn’t see her in slow motion when she came down the stairs anymore. That was a previous version of Jughead. A previous version of Jughead and Betty, too. But he still noticed the details every time she approached.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Jug.”
It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was slow. He could tell she was trying to read him.
He wondered what she wanted.
Younger women.
“Can I take you for a ride?”
Her eyes got wider and she shifted her weight just a hair closer to him. He could see her wheels turning, wondering what, if anything, this meant.
When she was finally tucked behind him, she stretched over his shoulder to speak directly into his ear.
“Really fast, Jug.”