Rap Sheet (First
published in DOJ, 2004)
“Two’s Company, Three’s a Shroud” or “What the Bush Administration Could
Learn from a Fish”
by Alan J. Gerstle
This all started on a fluke. It was simply a matter of adopting a fish. Little
did I know it would lead me into the treacherous and enigmatic waters of life,
death, the complexities of evolution, and the hazards of competing ideologies.
The fish in question was a Betta Splendens, or as nearly every school kid knows
this species: the Siamese Fighting Fish. It was bequeathed to me by the
daughter of an acquaintance—a pleading twelve-year-old girl. The family was
moving from a gritty tenement just off of Broad Street to a land I mentally
associated with tobacco, moonshine, Davy Crockett, and Al Gore: the State of
Tennessee.
This particular specimen was housed in a small bowl atop a dresser in the young
lady’s room. It was provided by her sixth-grade class: the objective being a
science experiment. Aja (the girl) was required to keep a log of the fish’s
behavior and provide a written report at the end of the term. But now she was
changing schools and residences midstream. So the fish needed an adopted home.
I volunteered to be the stepfather. When I was Aja’s age, my own room was a
menagerie of fish, reptiles, and amphibians. So I saw this opportunity as a
means to connect to my youth. That was the initial blunder in what was to
become a comedy of terrors.
