Free Best-Kept Boy in the World by Arthur Vanderbilt Page A

because you’re such a devilishly wicked Dorian Gray.
Actually, you’re a rather vulgar little not-so-young boy from the
most unpleasant state in the Union, whose chief claim to
sophistication is having been thrown out of a few European
hotels.” 32 At that outburst, Paul stalks from the
apartment, and Christopher, concerned that he may have misjudged
him and gone too far, runs after him and leads him back inside. The
two have breakfast, and Christopher calls his guru, Augustus Parr,
to make an immediate appointment for him to meet with Paul.
    The yogi spends the day with Paul. In their
meditations, Paul goes through a violent sort of catharsis, rolling
on the floor, crying in spasms, and finally relaxing, asking
Augustus Parr, “Why did you do that to me?” 33 Augustus
reports to Christopher that “there’s a very curious expression in
the eyes—you see it sometimes in photographs of wild animals at
bay. But one also saw something else—which no animal has or can
have—despair. Not helpless, negative despair. Dynamic despair. The
kind that makes dangerous criminals, and, very occasionally,
saints.” 34 How close those two extremes are Isherwood
explores in this story, how they can shift and flicker back and
forth. Augustus Parr tells Christopher that he feels progress has
been made during his day spent with Paul, but that only Christopher
can help him.
    The next morning Christopher is awakened by a call
from Ronny to go bail Paul out of jail; he had wrecked his car that
night and been arrested for drunk driving. Christopher realizes
that, for better or worse, he is stuck with Paul, that Paul is his
problem. He learns that Paul has no money, that he has expected to
“live off Ruthie, I guess. Till someone else showed
up.” 35 That day, as he meditates, Christopher wonders
“Does anything happen by accident? Augustus said No. Paul and I had
met because we needed each other. Yes, now I suddenly saw that; I
needed Paul every bit as much as he needed me. Our strength and our
weakness were complimentary. It would be much easier for us to go
forward together than separately. Only it was up to me to take the
first step.” 36 Christopher, through his meditation,
feels a brotherly love for Paul. He invites him to stay at his
apartment, and, inspired, gives him half of all the money he has in
his bank account, with no strings attached.
    And so began the characters’ monastic, celibate life
together, which mirrors Christopher’s and Denny’s months together,
beginning with an hour of meditation at six a.m., followed by
breakfast, then lessons when they read aloud to each other from a
book recommended by their yogi, more meditation at noon, a light
lunch, a walk or drive (“while we were in the car, the one who
wasn’t driving would read aloud to the other. This was supposed to
distract our minds and eyes from attractive pedestrians; actually,
it had the opposite effect; our glances became furtively compulsive
and we had several near collisions” 37 ), a vegetarian
supper. “This was certainly one of the happiest periods of my life.
The longer I lived with Paul, the more I became aware of a kind of
geisha quality in him; he really understood how to give pleasure,
to make daily life more decorative and to create enjoyment of small
occasions.” 38 This was, in fact, precisely Denny’s
gift.
    While Paul is at the dentist one morning,
Christopher takes a call for him from the Railway Express office
that “they had a picture to deliver.” Paul knows what it is: “‘Oh,
sure—that’s my Picasso,’ he said casually. ‘They’ve certainly taken
their time getting it here, I must say. It was stored in New York.
I sent for it soon after I moved in with you. It’ll brighten the
place up a bit.’” When it arrives it is “enormous—at least for our
apartment—over six feet long and about four feet wide; a tall
narrow painting of a giant girl seated at a high-legged table. The
girl had a violet face, two noses,