MONUMENTAL ACQUITTAL
This wasn’t just another lackluster suicide out on an empty highway pull off into the high desert of The Sierra Nevada Mountain range located just outside of the town of West Wendover Nevada. Not just another cop out on the beat either. He was my only older brother Donald Burnum who was just about to retire. Who, as it seemed, couldn’t bare to live one more second in order to get to his retirement. And so because of that there lay my brother in the front cab of his well loved Toyota Pickup Truck shot. All by himself in god knows which way but it was to the head.
So, what was responsible for it? The Dispatcher?
Another Officer? The one’s he’d been sleeping with? Or, maybe even both, but for some reason my older brother, Donald decided to take his own life on July the 3rd in the early morning darkness, next to the highway outside of city limits in his prized king cab, four door 4x4 long bed Toyota Taco, (Or better known to those without one as a Taco ma.)
That lead me up to the first time that I came into contact with my brother’s drinking habit myself which know seems to be quite a long time ago. Way back in 2004 or maybe 2005. It’s been so long I can hardly remember which. The only reason I did remember or knew at all was because it was around the same time period just after I had received my Social Security Disability checks that finally came long after I had suffered many losses and control over my own life to the hand of Schizo Affective Disorder.
During this time period though it was about spring, maybe fall but not quite midsummer yet and definitely not during the winter. That I would know because the small pond up a 14 mile switchback mountain forest road up to the top of the hill where a small waterfall cascaded down a rocky cliff into what was knows as, “Angel Lake”. Dammed off from running down the mountain before being coralled into a small pond free of moss and sea weed due to its constant overflow. It amounted in size to be just big enough to put a small stock of trout into.
They would stock it mostly with trout, had a few camp sites, outdoor toilets, and a rangers station. Perfect spot to spend all day getting drunk on cheap beer where as I was just coming off of a long time drinking habit of my own, but in this case wasn’t really allowed by any of my family members who were taking care of me at the time.
The only reason that they allowed me a good time up at the lake that day was due to the fact they were on their way that day anyway and I had just so happened to call my brother earlier that morning and asked if they were doing anything that day. At first he acted like it was just another ordinary day but since I happened to call an opportune time I was somehow able to talk him into letting me go. Explaining that, “It would just be an outing for me without a fishing pole or license.”
Probably because he was eager to start to drink and taking time out at the lake and dealing with going through the trouble of outfitting me with a pole and fishing license would take up all of his BBQ and drinking time.
It seemed to me to be that going through the time consuming process of taking care of me while I waited for the determination of my Social Security Disability benefits were made possible by the fact that I had spent the previous year living in with my, “Not so little sister” Melissa.
Better known as, “Missy” as we grew up six years apart, and who know was A.K.A Lyssa. Last name Thomp son this time. Four kids and all from separate marriages which is kind of ironic considering that since we only shared the same mother I really wasn’t a member of The Burnum family started off by my mother adopting us boys, Donald and I off to this guy Frank Lee Burnum. Probably knowing my mother just to make sure that my real father, Steve Neslen would never see nor have any rights to that of being a father to us boys. A deal I would’ve taken myself knowing what I know now about how, “Married with Children” turns out to work. Meaning they cheat, collect child support and claim abuse while the whole time collecting welfare and 18% of every dime that you make.
Which in my case was okay because I had a job dealing cards where my paycheck which was usually minimal due to the taxes with held from them was substantial due to the tips that I made dealing the blackjack tables. My $400 in rent that I was paying the owner of The Hotel Nevada to use his furnished apartment that he had stashed just across the street one block back and kitty corner to the club itself right next to the parking lot for the establishment. One that came to rest behind the building which faced the Main Street or Altman Street. The Main Drag. The last 18% of it went to my exwife for child support.
But back to the divorce part of my parents story. That had all happened a very long, long time ago but I never knew just how long my mother could carry a grudge un til it came time to burry Donald in the summer of 2015. You see, Steve had a family plot. One where Donald could’ve been buried with some type of respect in a cemetery considering that The West Wendover Police Department and the town of West Wendover, Nevada wanted nothing to do with an honorable cops funeral.
First, he wasn’t even on the job when it happened and it seemed that his personal affairs were happening on the job with more than one employee of which he was in command. As a Detective Sergeant, he could tell them what to do which worked out in his favor, but my sister and her father were the ones who ended up with the ashes after the cremation that only they wanted and not what my father and I had wanted. To be buried on a family plot. As far as killing himself went. You see, my wife Celeste, and I stayed in touch with Donald on a regular basis. Something that was a fairly recent arrangement. Donald and I didn’t get along.
One time while still in High School I called his girl friend a, “Bitch” for not saying hi to me back as him and her casually strolled past me through the living room on their way to Donald’s bedroom at the back of the apartment. He let it slide until she wasn’t around and then at tacked me like a wild animal as I lay on the couch half asleep. The same place I spent all of my days and nights with all of my cloths stacked high up against the back wall above the back of the couch because I couldn’t even share the bedroom with him like we had done when we were kids all because of her.
Violence seemed to be becoming a common de nominator with Donald in his relationships with other people except for his glued to the hip girlfriend Charlotte Eckins who, supposedly at the hand of her father, a craps dealer who just seemed to like to drink a few beers before coming home form work in one of the Casinos in town had been abusive with her. Supposedly anyhow. I think it was because he disapproved of Donald in the first place.
So the violence that Mr. Frank Lee Burnum. (Our adopted step father.) inflicted upon my brother and myself as small children now stared to come out in his relation ships in his grown up lifestyle. He eventually married Charlotte, bought a small house on her grand parents co sign that gave poor old Donald a leg up giving him credit. He soon after landed the job of being The Animal Control Officer for the police department after a few stints in some dead end Casino jobs. But like all others ended up moving form one department to the other just trying to fit in.
But he never drank back then either. Not as long as he was with Charlotte who definitely wouldn’t allow It and she kept him from his smoking habit trying to distance her self as far away from the life of her mother and father who made a living working in the clubs in town. By clubs I mean Casino’s. So, Charlotte finally had gotten her way.
Donald was finally out of the casinos and had what looked like the beginning of a career in law enforcement. Then, after graduating from the academy was a made an officer with the small police force in West Wendover Nevada. She kept very expensive porcelain dolls in very ex pensive display cases and wanted children of her own. Something Donald couldn’t bring himself to do stating that,
“The World was to bad of a place for children to grow up with.” So his beloved Charlotte began a relationship to an other person who she went on to marry and of course, have children together. This soured Donald and showed us that he loved her so much yet he was reluctant to give her children because of that. He acted very strange at times and I often wondered how he continued on climbing he ranks of The West Wendover Police Force.