Abner At Nine And The Left-Handed Sneeze

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For years, Grandpa Malone would sit Abner on his knee and use words like sclerosis, spinal disruption and  from latent to blatant to describe Grandma Malone's health.

There were six Malone grandchildren and Abner was the  youngest.

His thirteen-year old sister Gwendolyn was the second youngest grandchild.

On their mother's side of the family, there were also six Duggan grandchildren.

Frank Malone and Joseph Duggan co-owned a chain of hardware stores in Brooklyn. Patty Malone and Diane Duggan were best friends and next-door neighbors in Cedarhurst. They were the only Irish families in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. Their offspring lived in Westchester  or Suffolk counties. 

Betty and Martin Malone, Abner's parents, lived the furthest distance from Cedarhurst in Scarsdale. That was their family's fourth home, each one moving Abner and Gwen further from their ten cousins.

It had been two years since Abner sat on his grandfather's lap.

It had been two years since Abner had been in Cedarhurst with all his cousins. But this Sunday the entire Malone/Duggan clan was there because they had just buried Betty Malone. Dinner had been catered by Nunzio's Restaurant, the most popular restaurant in an almost exclusively Jewish community.

Abner did not sit on the lap of the only widow in the extended family. But that lap session traditionally had happened after the meal while Gwen and all her cousins played in the yard distracting the little boy on his grandfather's rocking chair.

This story goes no further than the main course of a funeral meal, which, of course, was very somber and, contrary to the tradition of a large gathering of an Irish family, humorless.

But all things change.

Gwen and Abner sat at opposite corners of the dining table because they were the only left-handed people present. However, Gwen sneezed loudly because she had sprinkled too much black pepper on her lasagna.

"That's a left-handed sneeze  if I ever heard one," said  Uncle Billy,
riveting his eyes on his brother, Martin.

"But she only does it when eating Italian food," said Martin.

"That's because it's my favorite kind of food," said Gwen.

"I don't get it: my sister and her husband are 100% right-handed yet their two children are both left-handed," said Grace Duggan-Flynn.

"That's because," said Martin Malone, accenting every word, "the Mayor of Scarsdale is left-handed."

The sneezer laughed first and the laughter snowballed around the table, with one exception: Nine year-old Abner did not laugh. He did not get the joke.

There is nothing funny about laughter when you do not get the joke. 

Abner, seated next to his mother, climbed up on her lap despite the fact that Betty Malone laughed louder than everyone else.    

      

© Paul Oliverio   

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