"No straight man has ever done that for me," she says.Ī buff man wearing a ribbed T-shirt slouches in, digging around in his pocket for enough change. The boys at Leon's took up a collection for her, bought her a television set, and took care of her yard work, even though she lives in Laurel. In 2000, she was diagnosed with colon cancer and was off work for two months. "He took me to Las Vegas for my 50th birthday," Ball says. Like everyone at the bar, he has two drinks in front of him. "This is Michael," she says, pointing to a man in a baseball cap nursing a gin and tonic. "I've never been treated better," Ball says of her customers.
"Sometimes they're evil," Ball says to a happy hour customer.
With the same owner for over 30 years and patrons who remember the password they once had to utter to get into the bar, why should it? In fact, the more Leon's changes, the more it stays the same.
Leon's has a charm all its own that emanates from the tar-stained ceilings and walls, the cracked and torn vinyl-seated barstools. Before AIDS took its toll on the customer base and hipper bars with glittering dance floors sprung up in the neighborhood, even a Monday night happy hour was standing room only. "A couple of young folks said, `Why don't you redecorate?' We do, but it keeps looking like this," she laughs. "It's always looked like this," Ball says, pointing to the dark walls and low, black-painted ceiling. These days Leon's is strictly a gay bar, serving mostly older gay men. It's been around since the 1930s, at least, but 2007 marks a half-century since gay men colonized the bohemian hangout that had previously served the artist community in Mount Vernon. (1936), but as far as anyone can tell, Leon's is the oldest continuously operating gay bar in Baltimore.
There are older gay bars around the country, such as Doubleheader in Seattle (1934) and the White Horse Inn in Berkeley, Calif. Leon's is a shots-and-beer joint, and that hasn't changed much at all in its 50-year existence. There are no martini glasses, frozen drinks, or frosted beer mugs. "It took me like two years to figure out what I did wrong," she says. It wasn't supposed to be, originally, but Ball made a mistake with the recipe that upped the heat. It may have started out as a modest marketing push to draw in new customers, but these days it's just something nice she does for her regulars. She developed the recipe for the sauce herself and has been serving it for about five years. "My claim to fame is Mustard Mondays," she says pushing over a basket of pretzels and a tiny plastic condiment container of dipping sauce.
After 22 years behind the bar at Leon's, she's earned this right. She calls the customers "Mary" or "Louise"-depending on whether or not she likes them. With her gold jewelry and halo of frosted, spiky hair, Ball shines like a disco ball. "We don't like much light in here," she says with a grin. The lights from the jukebox are the brightest things in the place, but when it came in a few years ago, Ball covered them with newspaper. Billy Idol screams "White Wedding" from the digital jukebox-just about the only modern item in the place. Cans of Bud, rum and cokes, and a drink with fruit juice hit the bar and bills are exchanged. Bartender Celeste Ball is slinging last-minute two-for-one orders for the men sitting around the oval-shaped bar that fills the room. At just before 8, happy hour is in its last moments, but no more than 10 men are there. The two front doors are propped open-usual for a spring evening-but the fading sunlight does nothing to illuminate the tiny corner bar at Park Avenue and Tyson Street.