Bill Deneen is a hard one to fully describe. You learned of this man over time. He was a range of types all self possessed and all of his characteristics were unapologetically invested in his interests. He was the kind of man you knew had not faced adversity ever in his life but nonetheless felt the need to challenge his mind and his ability to achieve.

It was the first time I had visited Terry in Vermont that I encountered Bill. He was a sharp minded quick witted elitist who had a long family line of which you would never have known from casual conversation. No, you had to know him long enough and well enough to be invited to his home in Manhattan to learn of the lineage. Even then it was not intentional. It was entirely by accident and only with keen observation would you connect the face on the man with the face on the life sized ancestral portrait hung in the Dining room.  The lean body and the aquiline features were unmistakable. I am moving in time to the year after I first met Bill to another time I was to go to visit Terry. Arrangements had been made to meet Bill in his manhattan apartment. I was greeted at the door and knew from Joe's description of the place that it was a large and rambling apartment with an office hidden in the far back of the apartment by the master bedroom. I never saw that part of the apartment but I did know of the overall setting. I stepped off of the elevator into a Chinese Red front gallery. The Mahogany furniture was unmistakably 18th century English and the similar age french mirror showed off the Shang Dynasty bronze wine ewer set in the center of the front table next to a Chinese urn shaped vase with long sleek orchids leaning over the ewer as if peeking inside.

I was guided into the front room from which you could see into the Dining room to the left replete with exceptional furnishings and ancestral portrait of a man who looked as if he could have been a slightly different version of Bill in blue satin and white ruffles typical of the 1750's Right down to the blue satin shoes. This surprised me but had not taken me too far off my expectations. After all I knew this was a man of extreme successes both financial and physical. Why would it surprise me to learn he came by it through a line of achieved predecessors. Off to the right was Mark the artist. I call him that because it is the only thing that was ever of any importance to this guy. He was a shaggy curly brunette standing all of five foot seven at his tallest and covered in paint all over his sweatshirt as well as jeans intentionally painted to resemble the Emerald City. His red sneakers completed the look. He sat on a spectacular and clearly prized brocade settee with his feet tucked up under him looking for all the world like a bohemian genie who had just popped into this otherwise stately scene. He couldn't have been more incongruous if he had shown up dressed as a mop. Bill introduces us and as part of the exposition and arrangements being made to fill us both in on the logistics of the trip up to Vermont explains we were waiting for Denny. Mark had no idea who Denny was. Terry knew Mark from a gallery showing in Greenwich village and had extended the invitation to come visit. Bill had graciously offered to drive the rest of us up. I had never even had a drivers licence much less a car. I didn't need one since my life was centered in Manhattan where a car was a luxury only the uber rich could manage. Mark had barely heard there was a state called Vermont much less identify a means of travel and Denny would have had to drive a Rolls Royce Silver Wraith (his only car) the several hundred miles to visit Terry. So it was set for us to go along with Bill as the driver by default and grace.

As we are sitting waiting for Denny to arrive Bill explains the tenderness of a recent development. It was  just after the release date of the Andy Warhol Diaries. Bill and I were well aware of Andy's lesser nature. He had a fascination with cruelty. He enjoyed finding the nicest people or the most innocent and after leading them on to trust him would find ways to degrade or humiliate them. He had one saving grace. He passed away before doing published damage to others. However in this case he had written down many insults, dismissals and outright cruel commentary in his diaries that were a twisting of other peoples lives in order to paint an ugly picture of the best people I had ever known. Denny was one of those victims. Denny was Andy's physician and was in constant contact. Bill was filling us in on what he knew had been published. Bill knew the publishers and had a pre release copy and in it realized Andy had eviscerated Denny. bill also know Denny's voracious appetite for reading and the day after the release was that week. Denny had bought both diaries and had read them both in a day or two. It took all Bill could do to convince Denny to come with us to Vermont.  Bill had a remarkable talent to encourage others. He had used these skills as a producer for many years and also as a film director.  He found ways to draw people out of their shells and made them see the positive side of everything.  It was this talent and the time invested that got him to bring Denny around. To that end he had filled us in on the books and cautioned us not to even casually bring up Andy in the 5 plus hour trip.  This was a gift he had. He could maintain a conversation and guide it so as to skim away from the rough patches and still somehow always have some new story or direction to turn a conversation.  Upon Denny's arrival he called down to the Doorman who had Bills car brought around to the front and we all went off to pile in and begin the trek straight up park avenue.
Not one half hour into the trip Denny took hold of the conversation and intentionally guided it to bring out the Elephant in the car as he called it. The look in Bills face was predictably taught and guarded. You could see his plan of distraction begin to form in his mind as he let Denny draw his inner bodhisattva out in relation to the entire mess. The relief in Bills face could almost be heard. From my vantage point in the rear passenger seat I got a side view and a rear view mirror view of him and the relaxation flowed out of him like it was finally a true get away from the stresses of city life. He had as close to a true smile as I can recall him displaying. This was a man who was almost predatory in his ability to focus on any thing. He never got lost, never strayed, never lost focus and because of this single mindedness rarely threw a smile in that didn't look premeditated.
The drive up went through a series of landmark topics ranging from Fine art to reincarnation optional outlooks. It was a  cornucopia of subjects and it kept us from having a single patch of quiet time the full  five and a half hours.
We pulled into the "farm" or as humans would call it, the country estate and loaded into the all too familiar selection of bedrooms. I stop this here because it details a time a full year after the initial meeting with Bill and Denny. I would like to return to that time a year earlier so as to more accurately place all the pieces in their proper place. Joe was alive, Stacy had recently passed and Terry had met someone new of whom he spoke that weekend for the first time. Denny was in a happier place and Bill was an entirely new thing to me. Charles was there making plays for anyone he saw as a potentially wealthy target. Bill was still someone who I would get to know over that four day weekend.  It would be cheating them of the initial way they spoke, walked, behaved and of their banquet buffet of interests explored that weekend to go any further and skip that inspired weekend .

For the here and now I can say this was weekend was one on which i was on a learning curve to become the person who was no longer in on a pass. These were sincere, intelligent, well mannered respected people on a social and financial level I had only ever glimpsed before. Now they surrounded me and there was no superficiality, shallowness or any of the popularized flaws commonly depicted when the entertainment machine tries to put these types in the camera lens. This was a true world which hadn't been seen outside of novels or historical dramas. In the present, in this place I saw prominent men in their natural habitat. I was in a world of quiet good taste and investment in the one thing the wealthy have time to explore. Their own self improvement and the encouragement of others. This was true aristocracy. The refinement of others and ones self by making room for others to learn and grow. For this I will always be grateful and because of these people I will always make the effort to bring the worthy up from the masses. I was taught well and will teach others well as my debt to those who have gone before me requires.