Radford Noone Research Service

climbing your family tree

Mighty Drofdar

Illusion and Reality: Manipulation as Currency and Being Grounded

 

 

             “Dwight can I manipulate you?” The first time I ever was asked this directly was at the prison. It boggled my mind. “Can you what?” with no doubt a duh look on my face was all that I could muster up at the moment. If there’s a principle that is nothing short of the eleventh commandment carved in stone by the hand of God at the prison, it’s “Thou shalt not be manipulated.” It’s ingrained in our heads not only by the correctional officers but by the inmates themselves.

The first thing I was told when I took the orientation classes at the prison was that inmates are experts in manipulation. From the sex offenders to corporate criminals and everything in between, we were led to believe that manipulation would be everywhere, and if we were not careful, we too would be victims. Because we were volunteering it shows that we are compassionate – and vulnerable. Looking back on that initial meeting, I have to grin, because, the gentleman giving the orientation was exactly right. The inmates themselves will even tell you that they get tired of the manipulation. So how does one stay grounded in the middle of this mess? How do I determine what is reality and what is illusion in a system that banks in manipulation?

             For me manipulation has played out in some really humorous ways, and I mean in a slap-stick funny fashion. Maybe it’s because I’m a man who is not that far removed in age from many of the men I work with that allows me certain privileges. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been around the block and this shelters me from some of this insanity. Maybe it’s that I’m not uptight about much of anything. Just maybe it’s because I put off an aura where the really bad manipulators simply leave me alone and go after each other and other volunteers. I don’t know. What I do know is that when one of the men wants to manipulate me, he usually just comes right out and asks, “Dwight, can I manipulate you? Will you [fill in the blank]?” What can one say to that? If the men are up front with me in this manner, then I can give them the respect of hearing them out and reasoning with them. It doesn’t mean they are going to get what they want. It just means they have my ear, my respect, and my attention.

             My relationship with the world of manipulation has come to be very philosophical and even spiritual in many ways. I’ve learned lessons that I would have never learned on the outside. Manipulation is also a currency on the outside, but there it’s easier to ignore. In prison it’s right in your face and it’s traded like money. The first time I heard a couple of the guys talking about how some inmates trade their newly arrived commissary for sex, I was in shell shocked. I asked them if they knew who traded what to whom and they said that it was common knowledge back on the cell block. This answer was complete with disgust and distain in their voices over the practice. However, it’s not just about sex, it’s about anything and everything. For people who are stripped down to nothing in their lives, to get what they want at whatever costs is business as usual. For the volunteers at the family history center, this type of manipulation is usually in the form of emotional perks, extra help with research at best, with bringing in contraband at worse. It’s a wild and weird world, and because it’s literally everywhere, it makes those who refuse to participate in the practice simply stand out and shine.

             The first time an inmate openly asked if he could manipulate me, I was simply dazed but in awe at the same time. This came by way of Matthew. He was the first inmate I had met so long ago, and we’ve had a buddy relationship ever since. I was originally brought down to the prison to meet with him, and some other men who had difficult Irish research questions that nobody else could answer. Matthew shocked me because he looked like me. He was like some long lost shirt tail cousin that you meet at a family reunion for the first time. We are both medium height, brown thinning hair, and have that protruding belly that is so common in men after they reach 45 years of age. He was not unlike me in my interests and intellectual abilities. His humor was somewhat on the dry witty side like mine. It was the sheer normality of Matthew that caught my attention. Yet there he was in prison. Now when we see each other there’s always a wise crack remark and a pat on that protruding belly. It’s our way of acknowledging the other and the realities of growing older – regardless of which side of the razor wire we may live on.

Usually people are sneaky with their manipulation. Isn’t that the whole point of the exercise? Matthew has a reputation as a manipulator and being sneaky. However, I had never experienced that with him, and to this day I still haven’t seen that side of him. Still, here I was in prison standing before an inmate who was honest in his request. All he was asking for was for me to take something out for him and give to another volunteer. It was personal in nature and if I hadn’t known this was taboo by prison standards I may have ignorantly done it. However, I knew better, and I knew that Matthew knew better also. Because he was so up front with me I told Matthew that I would consider his request. We both parted for lunch. I figured that if he showed me the respect to be honest, that he deserved for me to at least think about his question. During lunch I had the chance to process what had just happened. After lunch, we met and I told him that “No, I wouldn’t do it, but I really appreciated him being up front with his manipulation.” He smiled and we moved on with whatever we were doing. I don’t have a problem with Matthew. He’s just fine and I cherish the time I spend with him.

             To have someone openly ask you for permission to manipulate you as the inmates have done to me leaves me an emotional mess. Not the bad kind, but the kind where I’m laughing so hard to myself that I’m about to wet my pants. One recent episode came by way of Randy. Because of our comfortable relationship, he knows I will always give him a hearing. In his family history research he needed a piece of information from the outside (the inmates can’t have the Internet). Actually it was nothing major or sensitive. I’ve been on the prison list to take research out and to bring it back in for classes, so I could have done his request with little problem. The only difficulty was that internal politicking within the family history system was reevaluating policies, and for the moment we were not taking any requests out for the men. They all knew this. In my mind policy changes aren’t a problem as things tend to work themselves out – but never immediately.

             Randy really wanted this information, and I had told him, “No, I couldn’t at that time.” I instructed him to please be patient. He was anxious and patience wasn’t a word he knew that day.  He is very excited about his genealogy and discovering who he is through the historical records. He is also excited about having me there to help guide him. The subject came up a couple more times during the day. At the end of the day before everybody left, I was in the bat cave office with about four of the guys. We were chatting about nothing in particular. Randy popped in to say goodbye. I gave them all their little goodbye hugs in that volunteer-inmate kind of way. Randy was last and in the middle of his hug, he slipped his hand all the way down my back pocket. I’m no dummy, and I knew what he was doing. He was slipping his request to me on a folded piece of paper. However, none of the other guys knew what he was doing, although they observed the entire thing. Of course nothing sexual could be construed out of that!

I knew I had Randy just where I needed him. I looked at him and in front of the guys said, “Randy, is now the time for me to yell, ‘Randy, don’t touch me there?’” He obviously had to confess to the others what he had just done. To which one of the men jumped in without missing a beat and in a serious tone said, “Randy we were wondering what you were doing with your hand down Dwight’s back pocket.” It was a hoot from our perspective and embarrassing from Randy’s perspective. I think Randy learned what the word patience meant that day. Still in a warped way I had to respect Randy because he was upfront with his manipulation. He wasn’t hiding anything from me. Several months passed and Randy needed some more information from me, only this time he folded the paper when it was just the two of us and said, “I know better than to put it down your back pocket.” So what does he do? He slips it down my front pocket. All I could do was exit the room and keep what little dignity I had left intact as I was about to pee in my pants from that silent type of laughter. Permission to manipulate – what a concept. These guys are sooo good.

             If I could put a finger on my relationship with prison manipulation it would have to be the revelation I received from Brad. He’s far smarter than most young men in their late twenties. However, that is not always balanced with the wisdom that takes years to accumulate under your belt. He was recounting to me how he likes to push the boundaries with the directors. Then he followed it up with how he tends to do that with everybody at the prison. This was no surprise to me. In my worldview, pushing the boundaries is another form of manipulation. What you do when you push the boundaries at a prison is to see how much you can get away with and where your limits with that person are. As with all manipulation, it treats the person standing in front of you as an object to be tested, not as a person whom you care about. If you can manipulate the boundaries, and the people involved – you do.

             Little did Brad or I know, but the next piece of the conversation opened up a whole new insight for me. Often we’re clueless when we look at ourselves. We all need a Brad to point things out from time to time. “Brad, do you push the boundaries with me and I’m just too dumb to pick up on it?” After pausing and staring into space for a few seconds he replied, “No, I don’t

                                                                                           Continued…...