“I miss book stores,” says The Kid. She’s looking at an article on the plight of book sellers in CoronaWorld.
“I do, too.”
“I just want to walk around. I don't even want to buy anything.” [Pause] “Well, that’s not true.”
“What would you like to buy?”
[Mumble]
“What?”
“Things.”
“OK, you’re going to do that annoying thing where you want to tell me something that for some reason embarrasses you, so you pretend you don’t want to tell me. I’m going to assume ‘things’ mean ‘books.’ You want to buy a book?”
“Two books.”
“Two books. OK. Let me guess. You want to buy board books?”
“Board books? Dad, I’m not 3 years old.”
“You were saying you’ve been in a mood to read books that you read when you were younger.”
“Yeah, but not board books. And a lot of people with anxiety want to do this, Dad. Where they’d rather watch old shows again and again and again, and read old books again and again and again. There’s comfort in knowing the story and knowing how it ends and knowing you’ll like it. That’s why I want to read books that are young for me.”
“That makes sense. So what are the books?”
[Mumble]
“Sorry, child — that’s my trick ear.”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Are they horror books?”
“No!”
“Are they books where the characters undergo gay conversion therapy and become good Christian soldiers, and you’re afraid I won’t let you read them because I’m not a good Christian soldier?”
“Yeah, Dad. That’s totally right.”
“Just tell me.”
“These are normal books.”
“Uh-huh.”
“One of them’s about a couple.”
“Oh, my god!”
“Dad. It’s about a teenaged couple.”
“Uh-huh. And you think I’m only going to let you read books about solo teens?”
“Dad. It’s kind of likely that at some point they’re going to have sex. That’s why I don’t want to tell you.”
“I don’t care that you read books in which the characters have sex. I assume that’s true in lots of Young Adult fiction.”
“I don’t think they’re writing about the actual sex.”
“I understand. Actually, there’s very little good writing in any fiction about actual sex. It’s hard to write about actual sex. It’s not so hard to write about the things that happen around sex. But most writing about sex itself is boring.”
“OK, we're not going to have this conversation.”
“That’s fine. What about the second book?”
“Umm. I just want to buy it because of the cover.”
“It seems like there’s a saying about that, but I can't ... ”
“Dad. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You’ll never buy them. You never buy me anything.”
“On your birthday. Holidays.”
“There are no holidays coming up.”
“Flag Day.”
[Laughs] “I’m imagining the kind of presents you'd give on Flag Day.”
“Flag poles?”
“I was going to say those mini-flags, to wave around at parades. I don’t think these books would be appropriate to give for Flag Day.”
“What kind of books would be appropriate?”
“Super patriotic ones?”
“What about Memorial Day? Do any of the characters die fighting for their country?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Fourth of July? Bastille Day?”
“You know, summer is not a great holiday time. We already have time off to play and have fun, so they didn’t bother to put in any good holidays.”
“Wait. Who’s the ‘they’ in that sentence? The gods?”
“I don’t believe in gods.”
“Native American? Roman? Greek?”
“Well, Gaea seems nice.”
“Nice? I don’t think so.”
“OK, she does kind of turn evil. She’s bitter: her sons are still in Tartarus even after she divorces Uranus.”
“I don’t remember any of this.”
“Dad.”
She grabs D’aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. Uranus is proud of his and Gaea’s first 12 kids (six Titans, six Titanesses) but finds ugly the three Cyclopes and three sons with 50 heads and 100 arms and throws those six into Tartarus, the deepest pit under earth. Gaea convinces her youngest Titan, Cronus, to take up arms against his dad; Uranus flees.
“Yay, Cronus.”
“Oh, he turns out bad, too.”
Cronus becomes lord of the universe but declines to free his brothers. Gaea, angry, bides her time, knowing one of his children will be stronger. Cronus knows it, too, and swallows his first five offspring. This leaves his wife, Rhea, in mourning; she asks Gaea for help. She advises Rhea to hide her next born, Zeus, and give Cronus instead a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. Cronus swallows it while they hide Zeus in a Cretan cave; sprites mask his cries by banging swords on shields. Zeus grows strong, marries Metis, a Titan’s daughter; she tricks Cronus into eating an herb which makes him throw up the stone and his first five kids: Hades, Poseidon, Hestia, Demeter, Hera. They join forces with Zeus; Cronus flees.
“OK, I got it. Then Zeus turns bad, too. But we don’t have time for all that. We have to buy you a couple of books.”
“Really?”
“Really. Sometimes I can be nice.”
(New York state numbers on Wednesday: 343,051 diagnosed with Covid-19, up 0.7 percent; 157 dead, to a total of 22,170, up 0.7 percent. Overall U.S. deaths: 1,715, to a total of 78,041, up 2.2 percent.)
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