News outlets have eagerly reported Paul Manafort’s referral to the “VIP” room in a Virginia county jail following revocation of his bail, conjuring images amongst many internet commenters of Club Fed: tennis anyone? That of course is not the case. The euphemism, common amongst ironical prison hacks, denotes the hole, administrative segregation, P.C. (At MCC Chicago, where I was held pre-trial for four years, the guards referred to it as “1-1 hotel.”) A prison within a prison. A black ops site of sorts, tales of fellows naked, chained to a bed, feces smeared in their hair. It’s the last stop, reserved for those unable to come to terms with their own disquiet. And while Paul Manafort has been sent there ostensibly for his own physical safety, the deeper, psychological danger to Paul Manafort is Paul Manafort. What worse fate could befall a liar and confidence man than to be shut up with himself? Even the most hardened convict knows on some level what he’s about, and goes about pestering others to avoid what’s inevitable.
Right about now Manafort is no doubt enduring some combination of alcohol-nicotine-caffeine withdrawal. In a sense that’s a welcome distraction; an affirmation of self, almost, preceding whatever stirring of conscience. The polyester jump suit, the cockroaches, the stained mattress and the bedsprings, the army blanket, the bleak view out a narrow window, the buzzing of a fluorescent light, the insolence of guards, the indignity, the hours, the hardness, the insipidity of a jail cell … are nothing, distractions, and quite besides the point. Only gazing at one’s blurry face reflected in the polished steel mirror above the sink is one presented with one’s situation: that of disappearing. Whatever story one tells oneself, however sanguine about one’s chances, the final, inescapable fact of a jail cell is of all one’s efforts and life’s work leading down a dead end. The monster at the center of the maze is oneself.
You may rail against that. I’ve know a few brilliant, obdurate fellows. They are in the penitentiary now, or dead. One, an Outlaw Biker president, came back on a Rule 35b after being sentenced to life and ratted out his buddies after all; and while his moral calculus may have involved only more self-dealing, don’t fool yourself, the psychological cost is enormous. Which is the point of incarceration.
I don’t buy Manafort’s swagger or sang froid. I may be wrong. That is a matter between Paul Manafort and himself.