In April of 1972, my parents divorced. I was fourteen years old. In the fall of that year, my dad married a nineteen-year-old girl with a baby and my mom married her first cousin — a recent parolee from Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. In early 1973, Dad auctioned off our household goods, and in the dark of night — hoping to avoid debt collectors — moved us across the country from Findlay, Ohio to Tucson, Arizona. Five months later, I moved back to Findlay so I could attend eleventh grade at Findlay High School. In late May 1974, I returned home to Bryan, Ohio to live with my mom. By then, Mom’s second husband had committed suicide and she had a new man. Mom always had a new man. Her new beau was a man by the name of Chuck Jones.
Chuck was a lifelong resident of Bryan, Ohio. I don’t know how he and Mom met, but by the time I moved back to Bryan, he was Mom’s boyfriend. She would spend days on end at Chuck’s father’s rundown shack on the north side of town, leaving her children to fend for themselves. Chuck’s father was one of the town drunks, and as you shall learn in this story, so was his son. In November of 1974, Mom had another nervous breakdown. She spent the next six months or so at the Toledo State Mental Hospital. While there she would receive electroshock therapy (now known as electroconvulsive therapy — ECT).
After finding out his children had been living without parental supervision — as if we had any such supervision since their divorce — Dad came from Arizona, picked us up, and returned us to his home in Sierra Vista. I would live there until the fall of 1975. After breaking up with my girlfriend — my first serious, I want to marry you, relationship — I left my car for Dad to sell (which he quickly did and pocketed the money), packed up my meager belongings, and rode a Greyhound bus back to Bryan. By then, Mom had married Chuck, and they had bought a new mobile home, parking it in a trailer park on US 6, between Bryan and Edgerton (where Manufactured Housing Enterprises’ manufacturing facility sits today.)
Chuck had a split personality, as is common among alcoholics. When somewhat sober, he was a decent enough man. He was a union journeyman meat cutter for Kroger in Fort Wayne. He and I weren’t close, but when he wasn’t drunk we got along well enough to make Mom happy. I wasn’t home much. I spent my daytime hours working as the dairy manager for Food Giant in Bryan. Evenings and weekends, I was either attending church or running around with my friends. On a few occasions, Chuck and I would go fishing for catfish in the St. Joe, a nearby river.
Chuck drank from the time he got up until he went to bed. He was a Pabst Blue Ribbon man. He was what you would call a functional drunk. There were times, however, when Chuck went from a tolerable drunk to a mean, nasty, violent boozer. Chuck abused my mom (physically, sexually, and psychologically), and there were times she feared for her life.
One day, Chuck went on a rampage, verbally and physically abusing my mom. I was home at the time, and having had enough of his bullshit, I told him to stop. I thought at the time, that if I needed to — all 160 pounds of me — I would kick his ass and put an end to the abuse of my mother. I was angry — I mean redheaded, can’t-see-straight angry. While I blamed Mom for allowing such a degenerate like Chuck in her life, I wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing while he abused her.
Chuck briefly stumbled out of the living room down the hallway to their bedroom. When he returned he was brandishing a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. He continued his screaming fit, pointing the gun at Mom and me. By this time, Mom was crying, worried that Chuck was going to kill us. Not me. I was beyond fear. Chuck cocked the hammer on the revolver, hoping to strike fear in my heart. Instead, I said to him, Go ahead! Stupid, I know, but I was eighteen and filled with righteous indignation. Fortunately, calling Chuck’s bluff was enough to back him off and he soon retreated to the bedroom.
Several days later, at the behest of my mother, Jack Smith, pastor of Eastland Baptist Church in Bryan, and an evangelist stopped by to “help” Chuck with his alcohol problem. What Chuck needed, said these clueless preachers, was Jesus. If he would just ask Jesus to save him, all would be well. I have no idea if Chuck got “saved,” but the only salvation the rest of us found was to get away from Chuck. My younger sister, age fifteen, got pregnant and married her baby’s father. I left to train for the ministry at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. By the time I returned home for the summer (1977), Mom had thrown Chuck out of the house and divorced him.
Chuck lived with his dad for a time and then moved into his late mother’s house in Bryan. On November 19, 2009, Chuck died at the age of seventy. His obituary stated:
Charles E. ‘Chuck” Jones, 70 years, of Bryan, died Thursday, November 19, 2009 at the University of Toledo Medical Center, Toledo, Ohio. Chuck was born February 22, 1939 to Ewell “Pete” and Zelma (Sanders) Jones in Cloverport, Kentucky. He was an Army veteran. Chuck was a meat cutter, working for several area stores, including Kroger Company while living in Indiana and Harger Meats in Bryan, Ohio. Chuck obtained his pilot’s license at the age of 17. He enjoyed building airplanes that he then sold. He was an avid fisherman, but he also enjoyed gardening and playing on the computer. Preceded in death by his parents, half-brother, Donald Heston and sister, Irene Jones, he is survived by his aunt Dorothy Carver of Bryan and numerous cousins. Graveside funeral services will be held at 3:00 p.m. Saturday, November 21, 2009 at Farmer Cemetery with Pastor Gary Keisling officiating. There will be no public visitation.
Absent from this telling of his life was his addiction to alcohol and the great harm it caused to a woman who loved him. I shall never forget Chuck Jones. On the day I read his obituary in the local paper I said to myself, Good riddance, you piece of shit. Think I am being too harsh? Consider this: There are things Chuck did to my mom sexually, that to this day I am too ashamed to mention. Evil stuff. He was a violent, abusive man, and I have no problem saying that the world is better off without him in it. Now that I no longer have to love people because Jesus says I must, I am free to speak my mind on the people who have passed through my life.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Connect with me on social media:
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
It is interesting how a lot of women who were sexually abused think they always need a man, and often they end up with abusive ones. My mom was sexually abused as a child. Was married for a year then divorced, married to my abusive father for 6 (though separated for 2 years), was a single parent for 5 years and found Jesus, started dating and got married after 3 months to someone who was actually a decent guy but she became the bully. My mom verbally abused that poor man for 25 years, and worse, she either told my little brother he was “dumb like his daddy” or was just indifferent to him. Fortunately, my mom was only married to a drunk for the years she was with my father as my stepdad rarely drank.
Chuck sounds like a real winner, but Jesus wasn’t going to save him from his alcoholism.
No, not too harsh at all! One of the best things about becoming an atheist is that it also becomes ok to hate people who aren’t deserving of our good will. It may not seem funny to you, but I find the imagery amusing that an adult man with a gun would back down when called on his b.s. by a teenager. Shows what a weakling your typical bully is.
yeah, sure. zombie jeebus saves. at wells fargo.
The only thing I have to say to this waste of flesh would be, (to quote the Joker), “I’m glad you’re dead!”
Hi Bruce. Do you think the disfunction in your family perpetuated you involvement with religion as a form of escapism ? I tend to think that is the case with many people who become involved in fundamentalism. Just a thought. What do you think?
I grew up in Fundamentalism, so it was all I knew. After my parents divorced, my family stopped attending church. I, however, continued. To its credit, the church provided me with stability and security. My youth pastor was a father figure to me.
Do you think you would have been involed in religion at all if you had grown up in more stable environment?
I can’t say. Maybe. ?
Having known alcoholics, I can empathize with some of what you had to endure. I am glad you can face the truth of what his circumstances were and the danger it represented to you and your family. I’m also glad you are able to tell the tale, and hope that your blog may be of help to others.
What Angie said up there!! “One of the best things about becoming an atheist is that it also becomes ok to hate people who aren’t deserving of our good will.”
I sooo love this. I tell people all the time that since I don’t believe, I am not constrained by the ‘love everyone’ illness. Instead, I love and respect those people who earn it.
I’m glad you can share this stuff, Bruce. It would be really hard for me to start dredging up all the childhood crazy that had me wrecked for so long.
I read your comments about clergy who play up the “Reverent, Very Reverent and Right Reverent” thing. I must confess that I was one of them. I was ordained a Catholic priest in 1965, a time when the RC Church had reached its apex and just before it started to fall. I was very happy with my Roman collar,my title and my position. I came from an ethnic neighborhood (Irish) and sent to an ethnic parish ( Polish) + by yet the way, the Polish word for priest and prince are identifal. And even though I could not pronounce anyoney’s name, the people loved me or at least I thought they did. And I enjoyed every minute of it,
In retrospect I believe that I entered priesthood more for the status and security than a call from God. No way that this would last, and so I left priesthood 40+ years ago. Probably a good idea for the status of a priest today is not all that good. I think there are a number of priests in the same situation who did not leave. They really missed out on some great growth experience. Peace Btother