H₂Bro Part II: Who’ll Stop the Rain?

It is with profound heartache that I must report the breakup of H₂Bro. Though turmoil became obvious toward the end of my initial interview with the McHydro brothers, it’s shocking that such an extreme measure was taken so abruptly. After repeated inquiries, Willy was the first to return my phone calls.

          

“Let me give you the lowdown, Nate (sic),” he began. “Not long after you left kooky Kim’s party, I sipped from Billy’s gallon. Big discovery. Of all the shady shenanigans—he was drinking flavored water!”

          

Aquafina’s Wild Berry Flavor Splash, to be exact. Overwhelmed by the mob, the confession was forcibly extracted from Billy—his older brother cinched in a “tittie twister” as guitarist and H₂Bro loyalist Bo Van Dam intervened to “purple that other nurple.” Willy has condemned the deception, calling it “unnatural.”

          

“That phony,” Willy seethes. “This band celebrates Hydrogen twice and Oxygen once. It’s simple. Pure. And we come to find out that lately he’s been chugging this gutter runoff that’s only like 95% water. The audacity. Flavored water is for sellouts.”

          

Willy pledges the group will embark on a new era, already gigging on Friday, rechristened as H₂Broh. With seven members reduced to six, keyboardist Swinkle has been named Billy’s successor in the spotlight. Though he barely sang at the show I attended, henceforth Swinkle will be called upon for lead vocals on nearly half of their songs.

          

Suddenly my phone beeps. I’m startled. Billy McHydro is on line two. I blurt a hasty “Sounds good sorry gotta go see ya Friday” and end the talk to begin another one.

           

Immediately he bellows, “Say hello to Loudmouth Billy Bass!”

          

To be clear, he pronounces it “base,” as in the instrument.

          

“First show this Saturday,” he continues. “Rockin’ out in Kim’s basement. Gonna bass jam lots of Earth, Wind, & Fire!”

          

I stammer a question about the messy breakup with his erstwhile band.

          

“Fuck both water and those guys,” he answers. “Kim turned me on to flavored water to broaden my horizons, and if they’ve got a problem with that, then we’re done doing business.”

          

“OK, I get that,” I say. “But doesn’t it get tougher than that considering the fallout included your brother?”

           

I hear a disheartened gasp and then a tussle on the other line. The next voice I hear is Kim’s.

“No more questions! Billy’s frame of mind is very fragile and anti-water, and so I forbid you to make him cry tears. You vulture! Parasite! Hack… OK, do come Saturday. Toodle-oo.” 

   
She hangs up. My weekend plans are set.

          

###

          

Friday night. I make it to Tweed’s bar during H₂Broh’s sound check. There is more elbow room than there was at the previous show. Already I sense disquiet among the band’s faithful. Willy has a bass slung around his shoulder, meaning that the group has downsized to not only one McHydro but also a sole guitarist. Uncharacteristically troubled, Bo Van Dam approaches Willy.

          

“Any word from… you know?”

“Him?” Willy scoffs. “Pfft. Oh, probably falling a few glasses short of the doctor’s daily recommendation—but who cares? Right, boys?!”

           

The others murmur with obligatory support—except for the newly promoted Swinkle, who has added a rainstick to his repertoire. Before hoisting a gallon to his lips, he exclaims something that could be transcribed as:

          

“Peeeyaaaauuuu!!!”

           

Members of the audience presumably don’t share Swinkle’s zest. Conversations are hushed. Spirits are curbed. The Drippie I recently befriended nudges me, points to his H₂Bro shirt and then to Swinkle’s H₂Broh attire.

          

“Can you believe this shit?” He casts a stink-eyed gaze at Swinkle, who waves in response and anxiously guzzles more. “One of us is a fraud.”

          

Everyone winces as a metallic shriek of feedback pierces the air. Daunted but determined, Willy clutches the mic.

          

“You are all witnesses to something so big, so monumental,” he prophesizes. “It’s titanic.”

          

With that, Swinkle twinkles the keys to the sparse overture of “Across the Sea.” A resounding strum, an earnest falsetto, and they’ve begun. The performance is solid. I get a sense of genuine anguish from Willy when he belts out the chorus:

          

“Why are you so far away from me?/ I need help and you’re way across the sea.” 

         

It’s the highlight of the set. Willy struggles through the basslines of the next few numbers. The frustration overflows and he flubs lyrics. Poise evaporates. He calls a desperate audible and switches instruments with Bo, groaning “Take this accursed bass.” When he introduces Billy’s replacement to sing the next song, a jittery Swinkle thrusts his rainstick upward and accidentally cracks a Drippie in the nose. The band commences the mournful “Who’ll Stop the Rain” as she rushes outside, nursing the wound. A few others follow.

“Don’t go lady!” Swinkle pleads. “I got the cure for what ails ya!”

           

It’s a hollow vow. His vocals are creaky and wavering—like a fickle cat who can’t decide whether to hiss or purr. Matters worsen as the first chorus culminates. “And I wonder, yes I wonder, who’ll stop the rain” is followed by a grueling two-minute rainstick solo. Bafflingly, he repeats the solo after the second chorus. Ninety seconds into the interminable trickles, a Drippie voices his displeasure.

          

“Terrible!” he shouts. “Who’ll stop the rainstick!?’”

          
The band is drowned in jeers. Mortification overtakes Swinkle. His bladder detonates. Panicked beyond reason, he even sips more and repeats “no no no no” as the stain widens, drops, and drips. The music dies. It’s an act of mercy. The crowd is either laughing or leaving.

“He can’t handle his water!” Todd Pondo complains with a spike of his drumsticks.

          

“Amateur!” Willy rages. “In this band, we only wet our pants at the very end of holiday shows!”      

          

The disgruntled frontman storms offstage and barges through the exit. As I walk after him, the trombonist Chaz Winnebago blocks my path and offers me a liter of “dank Ice Mountain” to not report what I’ve just seen. I decline. Outside, Willy is gone. 

Saturday. When I chat with Billy and Kim that evening, he’s glum but she’s actually thrilled to speak to me—only because I can verify the cataclysm of H₂Broh’s debut. He croaks a barely audible “fuck water,” and then Loudmouth Billy Bass (pronounced “base”) adjourns to plug in his gear. Kim detects my unease. 

“Yes, I’m a teensy bit concerned he’s not drinking enough,” she admits as she sets ablaze an H₂Bro shirt. “‘Mother Nature’s wet dream,’ as he used to rhapsodize, was rather important to him. No matter. He promised me he’ll have a drink after the encore, to celebrate, when he has fully enraptured my mind, body, and soul—by playing ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.’”   

Shortly before showtime, I’m struck by Billy’s literal devotion to “going solo.” His bass and vocals create all the music. Adding to the peculiarity is his choice of venue, of course. Kim didn’t obtain any kind of license, but that doesn’t matter since the bar is totally dry: Billy has forbidden the presence of water.

           
While funky, the basslines of Earth, Wind, & Fire hits “September” and “Let’s Groove” sound eerily lonesome when plucked in a vacuum for eight minutes. Worse, Billy’s vocal chords sound excruciatingly parched; he sings like Tom Waits scalding in Death Valley, with none of the smooth jubilance required to honor the Soul.

 

Drippies get restless. I lock eyes with a man endowed with a massive afro. He looks familiar, but a moment later he turns away and covers his face as though he’s embarrassed to be seen here.

          

“We want a water jam!” someone demands.

          

Billy’s haggard face crinkles with disdain. Then he twists it into a sardonic smirk. He plays that ominous Dave Matthews Band song “Don’t Drink the Water” to a chorus of boos. I feel overfilled with dread and so I scramble up the stairs, outside for reprieve and a breath of fresh air.

          

Somebody follows. The man with the afro.

“It’s me. Bo Van Dam,” he says confidentially. “Worried about Billy, but I had to come incognito.”

He adjusts his oversized novelty wig. I nod. His eyes dart.

          

“Willy would flip out if he knew I came. It’s bogus. Deep down he cares the most about Billy. I know he’s stubborn, but come on! His own brother might not-drink himself to death.”

          

He elaborates on how terrible he feels about the saga. While he does so, the low vibrations stop. We hear a woman’s piercing shriek. Before long, a far-off siren wails, gets louder. Two paramedics arrive and go down the steps with a gurney in tow. Somber Drippies escape from the basement and linger next to Bo and me. The first paramedic emerges through the doorway, his hands gripped to the gurney, whereupon Billy lies wan and unresponsive.

          

“Worst case of dehydration I’ve ever seen,” the EMT pronounces.

          

His coworker nods gravely and they wheel Billy McHydro into the ambulance.

Then we hear a different kind of siren, a protracted “Nooooooo” that originates at a distance and quickly amplifies. Kim rushes outside, into the open space of a world that can scarcely contain her primal scream. Tears stream down her face. 

 “He never played ‘The Wreck!’” she bawls inconsolably.