What in Tarnation

If, as Delmore Schwartz noted, in dreams begin responsibilities, then it may be that with the realization of those dreams — let alone achieving fame — those responsibilities grow larger and ever more demanding. “He’s so busy all the time,” Caouette’s longtime boyfriend, David Sanin Paz, tells me by phone from their New York apartment, a faint whiff of exhaustion in his voice. “It’s hard, but things are good, and I’ve been able to travel with Jonathan a bit. And I always knew from the day I met him and I saw his stuff that this was going to happen someday. He never gave up.” Indeed, rather than spoiling Caouette, his unexpected success seems to have given him a new lease on life, made him comfortable in his own skin in a way that he hasn’t felt in decades, if ever. “It’s really helped him to let go of all that he’d been holding on to for so long,” suggests Joan Williams, who plans to move to New York with Josh so they can be closer to Jonathan. “When I met him, one of the very first things he told me was that he hadn’t cried in eight years. He’d forgotten how. It took him a long time just to get back to that point, and I have to say I was really proud of him when he did.”

On my last day in Houston, I discover that something else has changed in Caouette too. “He doesn’t hold the camera anymore,” says Stacy Mowlery, a friend from Caouette’s club-going days who also appears in the film. “The weirdest thing was for me to see Jonathan recently, for a couple of days back to back, with events happening, and nothing was being recorded. But he’s still Jonathan. He’s beautiful. And he has the most amazing spirit.”