Four Kinds of Rain by Robert Ward

jean jackets and biker leathers, and now a bunch of younger guys and girls, all of whom had started to come because of Dave’s reviews. And just a few weeks ago, Bob was digging it, really feeling great about it all … his town, his hood, his community. But now that he had the shot, the shot to make, Jesus, millions, now it had all started to seem old to him. Feelings he didn’t want to have … he’d always hated people who cast off their old friends when they got some dough. But maybe, he began to think now about his attitudes about such matters as instant wealth, maybe they’d been kind of unearned attitudes. Having had no money or any real chance for any, his attitudes had become set, and hardened at a certain (he now suspected) adolescent level.
    Because being on the cusp of wealth, he had to admit that some things about his old gang were more than a little annoying. The way they reacted to any new person or idea with the same old street attitude. The way Old Finnegan thought people who weren’t from Highlandtown, or hadn’t driven a bike, were all fags. Bob had always filed Old Finnegan’s attitude under the heading “colorful,” but suddenly it didn’t seem so colorful anymore. And the way his younger brother always repeated everything he said … like if Old Finnegan said, “Asshole,” about some perfectly decent, educated guy, Young Finnegan would say, “Total asshole.” Bob had found that kind of funny, too, local color and all that, but now he had to admit that maybe he was sick of local color. Sick of the Lodge, sick of playing old rock songs, like they were the hallowed text of some great epic poem when all most of them were was just simple rhythms and dumb teenage lust lyrics written by a bunch of third-rate hacks.
    How had he not seen all that before?
    Because, Bob thought, he had never dared to think bigger before. Because without the opportunity, why allow yourself to think of finer things, wider horizons?
    All it would do is break your heart.
    But not anymore. No … now he could dream about … well, about anything, any place, and it didn’t have to be the impossible dream. No, he and Jesse could go there and he could drive any car he wanted … so suddenly cars became an interest … when he had always sworn that a car was a mode of transportation, nothing more. Because old Man o’ the People Bob couldn’t afford a new car …
    And food. God, all his life he’d said how happy he was eating the local delicacy crab cakes and drinking National Bohemian beer at the Lodge, but now he had to admit that he was bloody sick of crab cakes, and couldn’t stand watery, tasteless Boh when he could have great beers … anytime he wanted.
    He was sick of leftovers, he was tired of being practical, and had started to truly hate common sense.
    He wanted glory, excess, self-indulgence. Wanted it so badly that he found himself snapping at everyone around him. It was like he couldn’t stop himself. He’d tell himself to chill out, that these were his old pals, for chrissakes, but dreams of luxury, of ease, of being catered to (instead of him catering to the hapless poor) poisoned every exchange. It had gotten so bad if someone came up to him and merely said, “Hi Bob,” he felt like taking their head off. “Hi Bob? What the fuck do you mean, ‘Hi Bob’? Do you know who I am? You fucking third-rate artist moron? I’m Bob fucking Wells and soon I’m going to be able to buy and sell you a thousand times over, asshole!”
    Of course, Bob never said those things. But he felt them with a fury and self-righteousness that shocked him. All these years he had worked for peanuts, waiting for the world to wake up, and now he knew without a doubt that the world had passed him by, and goddamn it he wanted revenge. Revenge on them all … though he knew, of course, in his right mind that none of it was his old pals’ fault. The fault lay within himself, but knowing that didn’t seem to do any good.
    He was