A Fish Tale

It was a different time, 1975. New Haven was a different place. There were different stores along Chapel Street – Kresge’s WT Grant – then, about a generation after they were called five-and-dime stores. FBI agents then wore white shirts and ties and often fedoras. Their office was in a deteriorating multi-story building at 770 Chapel. That year the US Attorney’s Office had relocated from what is now the United States Marshal’s Office at 141 Church Street to the third floor of The Bullard Building at the corner of Elm and Orange. So named for its long-time tenant/owner Bullard’s Furniture, a traditional store that didn’t know from Danish modern or Art Deco. It was good, old-fashioned comfortable furniture. Got it?

This move was the first of several leapfrogs that office took after leaving 141 Church, first to the Bullard Building, then to the Lomas and Nettleton Building, then to the Palladium Building and, finally, to the palatial Financial Center, completed at a time when few businesses could afford the rent for its impressive confines. In 1975 I was a prosecutor, an Assistant US Attorney. I was pretty new on the job. Peter Clark, a Navy Vietnam vet had been on the job for a number of years before me. Two or three others also served as AUSAs in New Haven.

The United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut was Peter C. Dorsey, late of Flannigan, Dorsey & Flannigan, an insurance defense firm. Peter had tried a ton of civil cases but had zero criminal experience. He got the appointment because he’d been a college roommate of Lowell Weicker, Connecticut’s senator, whose reputation had recently been burnished by his calling out President Nixon in Watergate hearings. Peter (the late Judge) Dorsey, as this story will illustrate, was a wonderful person and a great guy to work for. He never took himself too seriously. He knew how to laugh. He liked to rib people. He liked to get ribbed back. He never lost that, robe or no robe.

That’s essentially the setting for what I’m about to relate. The other item of note: the water cooler. In that era water coolers were a frequent feature on countless workplace cartoons as the locus for office gossip and humor. The United States Attorney’s Office had one. (This was before “hydration” was joined by kale and quinoa as a health and fashion basics, before people paid money for bottled water, when people playing sports refreshed themselves from garden hoses or buckets with ladles. Nuff said.) The office had a water cooler. It’s an important part of the story.

So, it’s late on Wednesday afternoon on a hot July day. It’s boring. I’m looking out my window, feet on the desk, searching as always for the meaning of life. Clark is out at the FBI building picking up reports. It occurs to me, life’s meaning having escaped for the moment, that it’s time for a little fun. I call the FBI and ask to have Peter call me. He does.

“Peter, stop by Grants and pick up a goldfish.”
“A what?”
“A goldfish. Never mind why. Just buy one and bring it back.”

And so, he does.

Peter walks into the office carrying a Chinese food container in which, once opened, we see his recent piscine purchase, a single fine bright-orange mini-carp. It appears relaxed and is otherwise enjoying his new environment. Peter is bewildered. He requires instructions. Follow me. He does. We enter the lunchroom. Remember this is a time when the tanks in the cooler are not today’s light plastic but heavy, heavy glass. Our task is obvious. Step one: empty and remove the existing tank. Step two: open a replacement. Step three: ever so gently deposit our new pet into the expansive transparent environment. Step four: turn that upside down, put it on the stand and then sit back and enjoy. Unbridled hilarity will ensue.

Not so fast. It turns out that underneath our innovative aquarium in which we hoped to display our little golden friend there is a reservoir in which the water cools before release. It is about eight inches deep, and it sits below the bottom of the glass tank. In short, we lose sight of our friend. We can’t see him. Hilarity is delayed; a recalculation required. We retrace our steps and develop another action plan. Step one: remove the tank. Step two: find our friend in the reservoir. Step three: put him back in the glass. Step four: fill the reservoir so the fish won’t go into it but stays visible elegantly swimming in the glass. Step five: put the glass back on top. Only then can we all sit back and watch the rollicking laughter. This time it works. The Marx Brothers have nothing on us.

Well, it was funny. Really funny. Others came and watched. But, of course, you had to be there. It turns out, though, if you are the office manager the humor isn’t readily apparent. Indeed, the office manager, a female former Marine Sergeant, is enraged. She found neither humor nor logic in what had occurred. This operation was nowhere in the GSA Manual. She was apparently sensitive to the WC Fields admonition: “Water? I never touch the stuff. Fish f*** in it”. She explodes. She explodes at Assistant United States Attorney Peter A Clark. She explodes at me. And, not surprisingly, she invades the United States Attorney’s Office, a mere 25 feet away and unloads on him at high decibel. She expresses her displeasure with vigor. She demands action. The United States Attorney acknowledges her consternation. He expresses his concern. His brow is furrowed. His jaw is set. He raises his voice. He directs her to send us to his office immediately. He intends – as we are able to overhear – will take direct and immediate disciplinary action.

The United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut loudly summons us. We enter sheepishly. “Shut the door.” He directs. We do. And then he sits back, knots his hands behind his head and laughs out loud. Peter thinks it’s terrific. “You know you have made my job difficult. Frankly, I didn’t think either of you were smart enough to think this up.” Our jobs of crime fighting are secure. Golden Boy, however, will have to go. And that’s why it was great to work for Peter Dorsey. He got it.