Cold Man Burning

Sometimes you get so cold
You fantasize about setting yourself on fire
Because the cold goes so deep
Bone deep, right?
Isn't that what they say?

So cold you gotta bite down on something
Or you'll take your tongue off
Without even thinking about it

I lick my lips and I taste blood
And from that point on

All I taste is blood

. . . . .

Down in August
It would get so hot
We'd take turns sitting in the fridge
With the door almost closed
While our brothers stood outside
Promising not to lock us in
Even though sometimes we did

And even when they did
We were so damn hot
We still chanced it

And sometimes when they did
We weren't even scared
But relieved
Because it felt so much better
To have the door all the way closed

And the cold felt good
For a long time
Before we realized
We were running out of air

I passed out in one of those fridges
Not because my brothers were mean
But because they heard the bell
From the fire station
And that meant
Somebody's house got too hot

. . . . . 

I remember my father
Standing outside the Brunsen's house
Chewing, like he always did
Shaking his head like the house was committing a sin
Just by being on fire

'Brunsen should have paid his rent,' my father said
And as a kid, I didn't understand
I didn't realize that what he said meant something

I didn't connect the dots about my father
Being the landlord
And the insurance money
And how bad a tenant Brunsen was
Having women in and out of his house
Drinking too much and making a spectacle out on the street
Calling our house at all hours saying he was going to withhold rent just because

All I remembered was my Uncle Joe
My father's brother
A lawyer

Talking about how hard it is to evict someone
Even when they don't pay their rent

Especially, he said, a cold bastard
Like John Brunsen

. . . . .

They didn't know if Brunsen was in the house

It was too hard to tell
And even bones will burn up
If you get 'em hot enough

They let the house burn to the ground
While my father stood by and watched

Later that night, he phoned the only number he had
For any relation to John Brunsen
A cousin or something
But the number was disconnected

I remember hearing my father laugh
Just once, one laugh
As he hung up the phone

. . . . .

I caught the chill before my brothers did
But somehow I managed to ride it
Not ride it out, because it never really left me
But just ride with it
Like somebody in the passenger seat
That never wants to get out

Both my brothers died that winter
Then my mother
But my father lived
The same way I did

With the cold inside him
That was never there before

And even the next summer
When the heat came back on
Some said harder than ever before

My father and I still had blankets wrapped around us
And we coughed up air so cold
We started wondering if our insides
Were colder than the insides of the fridge

When my father died
They sent me to live with my grandmother
And she managed to keep herself alive
Until I was eighteen

Then I was on my own

I could never work
Or do any sort of labor
Because of my condition

I got a few doctor's opinions
But you can only hear 'your guess is as good as mine' so many times
Before you stop inviting guesses altogether

Now I sit where I sit
And I sleep where I sleep
And people wonder
How the dirty guy in the park
Can wear that tattered old winter coat
When it's the middle of August
And the air's as hot as it was
The day it was coming off the fire
From Brunsen's house

I'd tell them, these people
These onlookers
Who look at me
The way everybody in town
Looked at that house
As it was going up in flames

I'd tell them if I could
That a cold man burned
Because of my father

And whether it's wrong or right
It's not for me to say

All I know is what's inside me

A cold that was never there before
Before that day
Before my father laughed at a dead man

Now I know my only relief
Would be stepping into a fire
And having someone
Lock the door behind me