Doctor Denny Cox arrived with Bill Deneen. They had driven up from Manhattan together. We met at Terry Gallowhurs' place in Vermont. It was a place of ethereal dreams to an impressionable mind. Here was an aristocratic man in a park like setting strolling around a mansion of Dynastic proportions. I had been young and inexperienced enough to do something I had never thought since was appropriate. I began counting the rooms. When I reached thirty I stopped counting. It had dawned on me that the numbers didn't do either the place or the people justice. I put away my curiosity about the superficial and opened up to the character of the people I was beginning to meet. Years later it was put best when encountering some self impressed people. The response to their value being set in their property was something I have said this to ever since. Don't tell me what you have, that doesn't impress me. Tell me who you are and if you are impressive it will show.

This is where I come back to Doctor Denny Cox. He was a curious middle ground. He was non descript and unassuming. He was of middle height, middle weight, middle age and middle demeanor. He would easily be overlooked at an event but would be the lynchpin who was the connection of every person of fame, wealth or power. You would never know of the mind of this man who would never brag but couldn't avoid being the one at an event of global fame. He was the party goer no one recognized but was always with the household names. He was Denny, polite to a fault, quiet as a drifting screen door and deep as an ocean.  This is not the man who would be of any power himself, nor was he a hanger on. He was the one the famous wanted around them and in many cases had to have around them. They relied on him as friend, confidant and physician. He was the one they felt had their best interests at heart and as such was in a minority, was a rare thing and was cherished by most for it.

He and Bill came in and were a strange thing that I hadn't realized at first. What Denny was Bill wasn't and the same in reverse. Yet they fit together. Not as a couple but as lifelong companions. They knew and understood each other. It was like watching a true to life Waiting For Godot play out in front of me. As the story progresses in the play you ultimately realize the nothing conversations the two leads only ever partially discuss was a display of evolution of a friendship. It was done as a show for an audience.  Godot was helping us so we would have an insight as to what goes on when two people who completely knew each other went about their daily habits. They didn't need to make the point clearly for each other. The other always knew what the first was going to say. The responses would be segments only because the segment that was said was the only part that was different from the previous days response. This was how these two fit together. They knew each other, at least on the day to day level. They knew the borders of their friendship and respected they were dramatically different. I would venture to say they were diametrically different. Where Denny was quiet Bill was loud. Denny's self effacing nature was countered by Bills stand out front nature. Not that Bill only ever stood out front for himself. He was quite capable of that but had tired of only ever championing his own interests. He also took that role for Denny. Where Denny would avoid a point Bill would break the ice for him. It was a heart warming thing to see the two relate so differently but put into behavior how there was mutual  respect. There was an unspoken support they offered to each other and I learned over that weekend and over others that it was prominent in this type of group to be a safety net for each other. Where any one person may have had a weakness the other or others or even an entire group would step in and make up the difference. That was their true nobility. They protected each other from the soft or weak spots in their collective. It had the effect of binding disparate people together. When you were a part of the group you were safe and if you didn't realize it directly you would find that at your weakest moment someone would save you. No one went unnoticed or devalued or diminished in any way. They showed you how much you meant as a person and it is a benchmark I look for to this day. People who live with others as a primary concern.

So Terry Joe and I hear the brass bell ring out over the valley and we, as a conversational group head for the door following Terry.  In front is of course Bill Deneen. A seventy three year old man with his twenty three year old "protege" Charles. There is little reason to discuss Charles but for now Denny and Bill are the focus.  Bill is a tall, lean strongly self aware man in his manner, dress, comportment and attitude. You know immediately upon meeting this man that he had never once had trouble getting through anything in life.  Introductions are made and we greeted Bill first then Denny then Charles. For all intents and purposes Charles will remain an insignificant person in my story. He may in some way or some place be more worthy but on this occasion he made it onto my bad side. A difficult thing to achieve so to be fair he will remain where he placed himself. On the periphery which is where he normally would have been had Bill not taken a liking to him. Charles proved himself as not deserving of Bills attention several times that weekend and the next time I saw Bill, Charles was no where to be found or even mentioned for that matter. It seemed in a matter of months he had proven to Bill that generosity had been wasted on him. I had reason to bring it to others attention but it wasn't my place to do so and a social weekend was not the time to say it. Seems I hadn't had to anyway. He worked his way in, confirmed to Bill that he didn't belong and was quietly worked back out. That's the thing about being in on a pass. If you deserve to be there they make it clear. If you don't deserve their support they handle it discreetly.

Bill and Charles are given one of the rooms on the second floor of the tower. The top of the tower was Joe and I and the other tower bedroom was reserved for someone who turned out couldn't make it. Denny had, as was standard, the reading room suite. This was the arm of rooms opposite the front door, that wing that reaches out and away from the tower. As we were bringing Denny into his room Terry takes the opportunity to show us that section of the house. The front door opens to a reading room library. It had a few built in shelves  with strategically placed chairs and candle stand tables. It was the repository of all the books brought in for the summer season. Terry made sure this room was well stocked with ever changing reading material for a very good reason. Many of his friends would spend their free time reading and magazines were not of much merit to these people. They preferred to learn or explore when they read. Each weekend from April to September Terry would have guests up from Thursday to Monday and each of those weekends he could rely on at least one of these people to be an avid reader. This was Denny's room. He was a consummate reader. He would come to breakfast each morning with stories to tell from the book or books he read before going to sleep. He offered pleasant stories from suitors in Venice in a turn of the century novel or a mystery if epic proportions that traveled the globe. Breakfast was always a joy in this house. Breakfast itself was a set out buffet in the yellow room dedicated to people meandering in and casually discussing all sorts of things. The seating in this room was wrapped around the room on built in benches placed under Meissen dishes decorating the walls.  We would sit and exchange all sorts of pleasant stories over the course of an hour to two hours. While we were at breakfast learning of a new development in surgery or a new flavor the guys came up for their ice cream company Mary would surreptitiously go to around the house and make up the room for us. I never actually saw her go into the rooms or come out but magically this amazing woman would be up before everyone and set up three meals a day for a dozen people, make up our rooms and do cleaning and laundry without ever being noticed. She was a charming woman I admire to this day. She spoke eloquently and well of everyone. She was hale and hearty even into her seventies which is when I first met her.

Denny would take the breakfast time to share his insights and we would each put what we might know of Rangoon, the setting of his overnight read or of the gem industry which would be at the heart of the mystery. We would see the travels of the couple who had their child to find or the delivery to track and each of his depictions would come to life for us. He never commanded an audience. These were chats. We each knew we could add to the story simply by knowing something of the back streets of Rangoon or the way to quantify a gem. We became conspirators in these books he had read. We were a gang of traveling detectives drawn along by our breakfast Sherpa.

Denny was charming but in a subtle way. You didn't feel put upon by him. He would share on rare occasion and it was a special experience when he would open up. Having opened up you might accidentally learn of his history as a student or how his first medical patient was Judy Garland. These things would just be part of his life so it wasn't him throwing a name in to fill an empty space. He would be speaking of how he learned what causes of an illness brought him to the forefront of a field and if his patient connected to it was a star then the name had to be part of the story. It was always on the fringe of his conversations. Like the color of a painted dresser. It was the dresser that was important and how it was built, why it existed and what function it served. The color just was part of the description and would be incomplete had it been omitted. In this way I learned that brilliance did not have to be connected to arrogance or self importance. It could just as easily be the outcropping of a mind that never wanted to stop exploring. It was his humility that stuck out for me. That being said Denny had one flaw. He was overcautious. Not to the extent that he would always be safe from the harshness of the world. It was tragic that his over cautiousness was applied in many ways but not overriding in his life. He had been seen in the company of too many stars and in the opening events of too many covered spotlights. For that reason he had to be on his guard if he thought someone was after him for his connections to others.  To keep people from using him he set up elaborate precautions like an answering service. He would only ever give out his answering service number to new people. All subsequent calls would be written down and then he would call in at the end of each day to get messages read to him. He then chose who to call and who to leave alone. He was not always good at judging the people he would select to call back. That was his downfall for many people. He would be called on this as bad behavior by others in the group. Not denigrated but told who hadn't deserved his aloofness. He would apologize but rarely would people contact him and give him the opportunity to make the wrong choice a second time. His timidity was his one flaw and it kept him separate and more often than not alone while everyone around him shared their lives with partners.

This was the tragic thing in his life. He had no idea he had made himself alone so he had no idea how to keep from feeling lonely. In those lonely times he took risks he shouldn't have taken. He would bring into his home people who helped him assuage his loneliness but had no personal connection to him. They therefore had no reason to see him as anything but a source of money. There were none of us in the position to protect him from this weakness. So in this regard he took the greatest risks and had the least protections when it finally came about that someone with a grudge and no morals took Denny from us. Most of us had all ready passed on or moved on. Denny, Bill and I were among the few still here and Bill was far to old to have been able to make a difference. I was three thousand miles away. Terry had passed and Joe was long gone. Denny was alone. I wish he had kept in touch with me. I would have been there for him when he needed support. He chose an artist who had an evil heart, mind and plan. It was a long and painful passing of which I only read in an article after the fact. It is not what he should be remembered for and for that reason I wanted to tell the world of a brilliant beautiful soul who had the humility of a novitiate and the genius of a world class surgeon.