"You want to call it that, you call it that. Only what the hell are you talking about?" "Well, back with the band in the old days, you were right there. _They_ were right there. Swaying there right in front of the stand and you were singing right to them. I _saw_ kids falling in love right in front of me. Maybe they got married after that. Maybe they _didn't_ get married. But I was reaching them, I was communicating." "When I hear an actor use the word 'communicate', I leave the room." "This time around I can't get any feeling that I'm reaching anybody, that it makes any difference." The party sounds burst in on them. The producer stood in the doorway. "What, are you memorizing those reviews? Come on, everybody's asking where you are." "Here we are." "Yeah, but come on. They want you, Van. Sibi's at the piano. You're on." "Sing _Melancholy Baby_," Van Richie said. But, he went out into the bright, crowded room and over to the piano. In a corner of the room, Ben listened, smiling and tapping his foot to the rhythm of the song. The room had quieted down while Van Richie was singing. There was a crash of applause when he finished. "Such a _little_ voice," a woman said to Ben. He recognized her as one of the writers' wives. "What did you do for it, Ben? Arthur said you did something perfectly amazing." Ben shrugged. "Not so amazing. We had a little belt made. About--" he stretched the thumb and middle finger of one hand "--six inches high, maybe an inch-and-a-half thick. It was a transmitter, actually--a miniature radio station." "But I never saw any wires. What did he have, batteries?" "Transistors. Like the astronauts in the space capsules. He wore the whole thing under his clothes. We had an amplifier in the wings to pick up the signal and beam it out to the house speakers." Ben laughed. "It probably loused up a few radios in the neighborhood but it worked." "I think it's just incredible. That _little_ voice!" * * * * * Years later, when the New York dentist replaced Gabriel's old steel fillings, he explained to him about the music. Gabriel had been receiving radio signals in the bits of metal in his head, he said. He was very scientific about it, even drawing a little diagram to show him how the radiator had helped ground him. Gabriel listened politely and smiled but said nothing. To him it was still a miracle. THE END