Evidently, the crocodile was a big hit.
After the game, the Jackalopes' locker room is alive and thumping. Jubilant faces everywhere, hearty slaps on the back, laughter...
Somehow, though, Peter feels far away. As if they're not really slapping his back, but someone else's. As if he's watching and hearing them all through fogged up glass.
Muted. Subdued. Desaturated.
It's all he can do to keep himself together before he changes out of his uniform, has a shower, disappears into his hoodie again, and gets the hell out of there. He's completely through the entire tubhouse hangar and into the parking lot before he realizes where he even is.
Once he sees his Oma leaning against her car waiting for him, Peter stops in his tracks. He tries to collect all the scattered pieces of Peter Donkersmit. But it's no good. He can't seem to find any of them anymore. Something is definitely amiss. Something he just can't align within himself.
As if his chords are all off key and he's been trying to play them on the wrong instrument.
But revealing all this to his Oma would probably rank among the worst things he could do, so Peter chooses to stay quiet. He marches ahead.
Oma gives him a clap and a bow just before opening her car door.
"Congratulations on your third victory in a row." She says.
Peter rubs the back of his neck, threading his long hair through his fingers. He swings open the passenger's side door and climbs in. "Thanks."
"So, a crocodile?" Peter's Oma puts the key in the ignition and they're off. Homeward bound.
Peter shrugs. "Yup." He doesn't know what else to say.
"Pretty impressive." She taps her fingers rhythmically on the steering wheel.
Peter just nods. He wishes he were in his room, alone, already. At least all the noise inside him could settle down there.
Maybe.
Here, out in the world, everything always seems to grow louder and louder and loud-
"Though I really don't understand why they have to play that wretched song over the loudspeakers before every single game. It gets on my nerves. Just because it mentions Jupiter doesn't mean The Hooks intended it flatteringly. Don't these people understand detached irony?" Oma says.
"It gets on my nerves too." Peter agrees, the lyrics to 'Jackalope Sunshine' suddenly blaring through his mind.
His mother's own voice. Clear and young and defiant and strong.
Who knew she would be dead mere days after the recording? Peter hadn't even had his fourth birthday yet. But all it took was five seconds for a rogue humor to rip open The Hooks' tour bus and she was gone.
Off on her last great, and awfully big, adventure.
All she left behind was that song. And Peter.
"I miss her." He settles on saying.
His Oma's eyes, like his, are watery. "I miss her too," she agrees, "Melody was a real firecracker."
"You think she would've liked who I've become?" Peter almost doesn't want to hear the answer.
His Oma turns her head, frowning at him. "What are you talking about, Peter? Of course she would've liked you!"
"But what if she hadn't? I'm a jock. I play tourneytub. Just a cog in the machine. Beneath the boot of The Man. Totally at odds with her punk ethos." Peter hangs his head while winding roads sweep past the car windows. If only his mom could know he did it all for her.
"Seeing as how her punk ethos probably got her killed, perhaps it's not such a bad thing you haven't followed in her footsteps." Oma warns.
A yawning silence falls between them.
Peter, as always, finds himself incapable of bridging it.
***
Photo courtesy of Savva Motovilov on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/@savva. Edited.