Neil Sedaka

He was making strange noises with his mouth again while contorting his face, like he did every day when he boarded the bus. People knew him well enough to ignore him. Some had told him their names, which he often used against them in an attempt to engage what seemed like normal conversation.

One woman chatted with him for a while. He sang songs for her and asked her to name the tune; then he asked her name, and she refused. “Good idea,” he said, “you never know what kind of weirdos you'll meet on the bus.”

Points for self-awareness?

Another man with some biblical name like John or Luke came onboard and brushed past the vaguely self-aware weirdo, who called his name as he passed. Finally the weirdo got his attention.

“What?” said the man.

“Hey, you know that Neil Sedaka song that someone covered?”

“What about it?”

“What was the name of that song?”

“Which one?”

“We were talking about it the other day, remember? It's that song that someone covered.”

“Neil Sedaka has a lot of songs.”

“No, someone covered his song. We were talking about it the other day.”

The nameless woman got off somewhere around here. She held a piece of paper and talked to the driver before leaving. “You did a good job today,” she said as she finally disembarked. She stood on the sidewalk as we pulled away. Maybe she'd gotten off at the right place, maybe not.

“Lots of Neil Sedaka's songs have been covered. You have to be more specific.”

“Oh yeah.” Weirdo stared off into the distance for a while as though thinking about it, then spoke again. “Hey, you know he has a new album out?”