The Proud, The Few, And The Gay Bar -- Lounge Business Flourishes In Shadow Of Marine Base

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. - It's 11 o'clock on a Saturday night, and with more than 100 drinking, dancing, pool-shooting patrons in Friend's Lounge, Danny Leonard ought to be one happy proprietor.

But the owner of Jacksonville's only gay bar is edgy. Right now he's peering through the wire mesh on the locked front door at Route 24, known as "Freedom Way," which connects his establishment to the vast Marine base at Camp Lejeune.

Any gay bar within spitting distance of a military base might be nervous, given the firestorm greeting President Clinton's apparent determination to end the ban on homosexuals in the military.

Leonard estimates about two-thirds of his patrons are Marines and sailors, despite the fact Camp Lejeune has declared the bar off-limits. "I just tell them, `Y'all come around,' " Leonard says.

All the same, nobody gets in the locked door until the cashier has given them the once-over.

On Jan. 30 just 40 miles south of here, Crae Pridgen says, he was dragged out of a Wilmington, N.C., gay bar and beaten by three Marines, reportedly in retaliation for Clinton's efforts to end the ban.

But if politics and danger hang in the air like cigarette smoke, they can't obscure the fact that Friend's Lounge is quite a scene.

One towering active-duty corporal operates the bar, while another runs the DJ booth. Military types of both sexes bend over pool shots, crowd the dance floor and line up for drinks.

Taller than most in stiletto heels, two nervous but friendly female impersonators strut about getting ready for their midnight show.

At the bar, a sailor who swears he's straight concedes the visit could cause him "a lot of flak if people found out."

"They'd be calling me a `Clinton sailor' for sure," he says, using the new military euphemism for homosexual. He winces and turns back to his tequila.

Still, coming to Friend's is considerably less risky today than eight years ago because the military no longer enforces the 1982 ban - in part due to Leonard's sabotage of their surveillance.

Patrons agree Leonard is no ordinary businessman.

"He's Mom," says Don Gaines of Flint, Mich., a former Marine corporal who finished his tour of duty a year ago and is now a student. "We'd call him Dad," he says with a laugh, "but he wears a dress sometimes."

Leonard, 48, has been a part-time female impersonator for going on 28 years, he says, as well as bar owner for the past 11.

"I was put here for a reason - for these boys and girls," says the Lexington, N.C., native. "I feel very strongly about it."

Leonard bought the bar about the same time it was declared off-limits. The first few years, Leonard conducted a running campaign to thwart agents of the Naval Investigative Service. Leonard says the agents parked just off Leonard's property, noting license plates and spying on patrons with high-powered binoculars.

Leonard called friends on base to spread the word that nobody should park at the bar. Sometimes his customers hiked overland, crawling the last hundred feet through the woods. Other nights he would run a shuttle service to the bar from a nearby McDonald's. "We'd hold a sheet up when they got out of the van so they couldn't be spotted," he says.

His favorite strategy: Having nonmilitary patrons get Marine look-alike buzz cuts. After that, Leonard says, NIS visits started to dwindle.

While Camp Lejeune spokesman Maj. Jay Farrar denies any specific knowledge about Friend's, he quotes NIS officials who say that sort of anti-gay surveillance was discontinued around 1985.

"These kids," Leonard says of his military patrons, "are really a special breed. They're real proud to be Americans, real proud to be gay, and they love their country. We lost three boys in the Beirut bombing. And we had 57 who served in Saudi - thank God we didn't lose any of them."

Everyone here agrees the ban should be lifted, but few say it will bring them out of the closet.

"It'd be like telling the military you're a Communist," says Craig, the 21-year-old corporal from Atlanta who's slinging drinks. Like all active-duty homosexuals interviewed, Craig refused to let his last name be used. "What good would that do me?"

Lance Cpl. Eric, civilian boyfriend in tow, agrees.

"For some reason, most Marines assume if you're gay, you're going to be after them."

The 21-year-old from Dayton, Ohio, gives a caustic snort. "Now there's a lot of ego in that."

Only Tracey, a lance corporal from Orlando, Fla., vows she'll acknowledge she's gay the moment the ban is lifted.

"My bedroom has nothing to do with my work space," says the 23-year-old.

"When they talk about how they'd like to put `faggots' up against the wall and shoot them," she says, voice shaking with anger, "it nearly kills me. No matter what they say, I'm a lesbian. And I'm here."

There is considerable astonishment that a president bothered to pick up their cause.

"I didn't ever think that this would happen," says Gaines, "that a president would give a damn about us."

Homosexuals in the military describe a range of coping strategies. They guard what they say around colleagues. Many - especially officers who won't risk being spotted by a subordinate at a gay bar - rely on informal social networks, meeting at private parties. Some marry gay or straight people of the opposite sex for camouflage.

Why join the military if you know you're gay?

Gays in the military argue that they enlist for the same reasons as everyone else - for a job in a depressed economy, for educational opportunities, and sometimes out of patriotism.

Bar owner Leonard has perhaps the most-realistic answer.

"Most of these kids enlisted right out of high school," he says and many were confused about or denying their sexuality. And when they come in his bar the first time, they're petrified.

"These kids are being persecuted for the same thing they're expected to fight for," he says with an angry glint in his eye. "Freedom."

But freedom, as they say, must be defended every day. Right now, Leonard's keeping watch at the front door, guarding against trouble.

Not to worry, though, Leonard says he's prepared.

"I've got baseball bats for everyone behind the bar."