290 SLAUGHTERHOUSE- FIVE
causing accidents and damaging the exhaust on her own car. Ironically, Billy sur-
vives the plane crash but his wife dies from carbon monoxide poisoning. Billy is
in his room recovering with an arrogant professor/historian for a roommate
named B. C. Rumfoord ( John Dehner) complaining to his much- younger wife
about being stuck in a room with such a weak and worthless man. Rumfoord is
writing about the bombing of Dresden. When Billy says he was there, Rumfoord
tells Billy the bombing was justified. At dinner, the night of the bombing, How-
ard W. Campbell, Jr. (Richard Schaal), an American attired in a garish Nazi uni-
form with American flag décor, tries to recruit the POWs for the Free American
Corps: an anti- communist and anti- Semitic outfit allied with the Germans. As
Derby is denouncing Campbell as a traitor, an air raid siren sounds and the men
are ordered to evacuate to an underground shelter just before Dresden is fire-
bombed. In March 1968, Billy is taken home by his daughter Barbara (Holly
Near). She pleads with him to stay with her and her husband but he refuses. He
takes his el derly dog Spot and shuts the door in her face. The bombing is over, and
the soldiers go up the stairs to inspect the damage. Billy is lying in bed at his
home with Spot when his son Robert (Perry King) comes to visit him. The former
delinquent, now a Green Beret fighting in Vietnam, is home on emergency leave.
Robert is caring, but Billy is distracted. Right after Robert leaves, the beam of light
he saw in the sky while at the lake in 1947 reappears and takes him away to a
geodesic dome on the planet Tralfamadore. The Tralfamadorian elder tells him he
cannot see them because they live in the fourth dimension and that he cannot
leave the dome. An el derly German officer (Friedrich von Ledebur) orders Billy
and the other POWs to pro cess the corpses from the rubble of the bombed city
and to collect their personal remains. He also warns them that looters will be
summarily shot. While Billy and the soldiers are collecting the bodies, he is on
Tralfamadore telling the elder about the bombing and how it affected him. The
elder assures that every thing that happens always has and always will happen;
past, pres ent, and future are always happening at the same time in their world,
which also gets destroyed and destroys the entire universe because of a mishap
with one of their test pi lots. Porn actress Montana Wildhack has now been added
to the exhibit with Billy, and the Tralfamadorian elder insists that they mate. Billy,
always a gentleman, expresses reluctance but Montana lets him go to bed with
her. Some days after the bombing, Derby finds an undamaged Hummel figurine
in the rubble that is an exact replica of one his son once broke— a joyous find that
gets him immediately shot to death by a firing squad. Billy is back on Tralfama-
dore with Montana in her new wardrobe. They want to have a baby together. It
is back to March 1968 and Billy’s daughter finds him in his house. When Billy
speaks about Tralfamadore she thinks he has lost his mind. His son- in- law sug-
gests that Billy see a psychiatrist. He assures them that the Tralfamadorians do
not see past, pres ent, and future the way Earthlings do and also reveals to them
dis appeared porn star Montana Wildhack is his love interest there and that he has
seen his death. An el derly Billy Pilgrim addresses a crowd in Philadelphia about
Tralfamadore and their lack of concept about time when an el derly Paul Lazzaro
shoots him dead with a sniper rifle. Billy wakes up to find himself in the ruins
of Dresden in April 1945 with Lazzaro and fellow soldiers attempting to steal a