Richard Hertz, MD

Once upon a time, there were two people who lived together in a very, very, very small apartment. They both liked movies, but one of them liked movies more than the other. One of them would sit through any movie at all no matter how bad it was. The other would walk out of a movie if it failed in any way to live up to expectations. Oddly enough, the one who really loved movies was the walker, and his name was Fred. The other one, who only sort of liked movies but was willing to sit through nearly any swill rather than embarrass herself by walking out was called, let's say, me. Anyway, I knew of Fred's proclivities and he was aware of my inertia and the spooky brew of our tendencies was about to come to a boil.
Richard Gere had been in another movie that was playing not too far from where we were living on the Upper East. I had never actually seen a Richard Gere movie (although I'd seen clips from "American Gigolo" and hadn't really liked what I'd seen) and it was a rip-off of a French film (and I had to look it up on imdb.com to recall the name, otherwise I'd be making a total arse of myself with possible titles such as: Blowing, This Blows, Barking, etc.) and renamed "Breathless."
Not long into this spleen-jerker, I started wondering how Fred felt about the film and if he was about to walk out. I had never walked out of a film, but I was now ready for a new experience. I didn't say anything and we sat through the whole, long, ghastly turd. Afterwards I mentioned to Fred that I would have walked out of that one if he wanted to and he said that he was staying put because he knew I didn't like to walk out. Then we both started laughing and went in search of a watering hole in which to sluice away the bad taste in our mouths.
We had passed a watering hole called Uncle Charlie's North. This was patently a gay bar, as its brother in the Village was. But we also patronized a gay bar up in our neighborhood called Brandy's, and didn't think anything of it.
The clincher on this deal was that Uncle Charlie was having a happy hour for the next 40 minutes or so, making it a wise financial choice. The counter bar was crowded, so we ambled off to a quiet corner to sip our beers and trash the waste of celluloid we'd just suffered through. The first round went fairly quickly, having also demolished a container of over-salted, over-priced popcorn at said "flick." After the second round, though, Fred claimed he was tired of braving the group at the bar and being ogled (which I never knew he ever had a problem with), and he told me to make the next trip.
Because we'd been sitting by ourselves and absorbed in our mutual grievances, I hadn't really looked around the bar, but standing in a short line at the counter for the last happy hour call, I realized that I was next to the only other woman in the place and all the monitors were showing male strippers (a waste of time, as far as I'm concerned). This may have shown on my face, for a denizen of the barstools leaned back and said, "Don't worry, Honey, we don't bite!" To which I retorted rather quickly, "Oooooo, I wish you would!"
This seemed to entertain my new friend, which he intended to be. He invited me to bring my escort to the bar (where, happy hour closing out, there was now room). Fred reluctantly joined us.
Perhaps I should describe Fred a bit, explain what he was doing in New York and our relationship. When we met in South Carolina, Fred was a hairdresser and we dated. Fred has a lot of gay friends. Fred moved to New York to work on Broadway, and he did; as a hair and make-up man he worked on "Cats" (very tiny perm rods), "Amadeus," and "Doonesbury: the Musical," to name a few. In New York, however, our relationship was different. Wisely, we were just roommates. Fred, however, should have been having no problem in this bar. It took several drinks to loosen him up.
Our new friend and benefactor (he was now buying) was absolutely delighted with the two of us. He pardoned himself at one point to go to the men's room. I had to check with Fred who was going from "I'm not all that happy here" to "Well, okay, if you're having a good time" when the bartender, using the same microphone he'd used to announce the last happy hour call, called out, "Phone call for Doctor Hertz! Paging Doctor Dick Hertz!" and our benefactor, just coming around the corner bleated, "That's meeee!"
To this day I only know this man as Dr. Dick Hertz. If he mentioned his name, I did not retain it.
Dr. Hertz convinced us to go to another bar in the Village and we all (as he had some other friends) piled into a taxi. The next thing I remember, I was on a dance floor dancing with someone I did not know. There were all men around me, mostly bald, bearded, pierced, black leather-clad. Notably, one of them was wearing some sort of studded black leather halter and black leather shorts, and probably a black leather, studded dog collar. This was a new experience for me, and I was grateful for it. However, it was a "school night." Our intention had been to see a movie and perhaps consume a beverage or two.
After the song, I located the bar and found Fred sitting there looking shell-shocked. "Where are we?" I yelled over the music. "We're in the Village," he told me, "at a bar called The Monster." "How did we get here?" "I don't know," he admitted, "but I remember something about a taxi ride and someone named Dr. Dick Hertz."
Right on cue, the good doctor came up to us shouting, "That's meee!" We thanked him and made our way out. Nothing looked familiar. We spent the next couple of hours wandering around the Village, trying to find a subway and our way home. At that hour, the subways were coming right seldom and we had to take three to get back home. After the subways we had to negotiate the eight blocks from Lexington and 86th Street (where Fred claimed to see prostitutes all the time and I never knew what he was talking about) back to our apartment.
I look back and shudder at the escapades I had in New York and am amazed that nothing ever happened to me. I am thankful, though, that I don't have stories to tell about bondage clubs or being mugged or other more lurid fare. I'll leave those tales to others. A couple of decades down the line when I'm appalling my great-niece and -nephews with stories, the contrast between my grey head and wrinkles and the mild excitement of these stories will be enough to make them goggle. Well, at least they will goggle the first few hundred times.