The Barbershop Quartet

During the "storyline" there is a moment when Billy is making a party at his house with Valencia and Trout. There is a quartet of singers who sing along different songs, and when Billy sees them, he comes into a state of sickness and unsteadiness. "Billy was emotionally racked again. The experience was definitely associated with those four men and not with what they sang." pg 176. He doesn't know why it is that these men bring this feeling to him, but later on there is something he lives as he is unstuck in time back in Dresden that relates to why he may be experiencing that at the party. "He told Montana about the four guards who, in their astonishment and grief, resembled a barbershop quartet." pg 179. What the survivors, including Billy, the other Americans and the guards, were seeing was a catastrophe that would be hard to imagine. A whole city being consumed in a short lapse of time leaving nothing but a trail of what it used to be. It is very hard to imagine such an occurrence, the elimination of an entire city, and even more if you are the only thing left of it.

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What this might have meant to Billy as he saw the quartet sing along was a memory of that tragic moment. The mix of feelings one could have experienced at such and event is something that in the case of Billy took him to lock himself in his house to try and calm down. After such an event the feeling of suffering, of chaos, and finally of tranquility would be present all around. You know the chaos and the destruction it took to perform it, but at the same time you feel the sudden peace and unsteadiness of what is happening. This may have lead Billy to become completely engulfed in what was going on as the quartet sang, and then have the reaction he had as he unconsciously related that event with an event that marked him so deeply as that when he walked out of the slaughter house that day in Dresden.