A Homeless Man and a Skull

In the late 1980s, I worked as a journalist for a regional newspaper. I had good relations with the police, and they often supplied me with interesting material—crime stories and curious incidents. I developed a particularly good relationship with a middle-aged major named Alexei Mikhailovich. I was in my early twenties, so I called him by his first name and patronymic (and when we were drinking, I'd switch to "Mikhalych"). He told me the story of the homeless man with the skull.

One day, the police received a complaint about a man wandering around carrying a human skull in a bag. Clearly, he was a homeless man, and while it wasn't practical to deal with them back then, it was worth investigating. They radioed in: whoever saw him was to detain him. That evening, they brought in the old man. He was dirty and smelled strongly—well, a homeless man is a homeless man. Sober, but a little stoned. There really was a skull in the bag. They started asking where it came from, but he was talking nonsense. He couldn't remember his name, and he didn't know where it was from. Well, the thing was, there might be some criminal activity with the skull. Naturally, they decided to confiscate it. They put it in the bag and inventoried it, but the homeless man remained silent. When they tried to take it away, he started hysterically screaming, "Don't take it, I'll die!"

Alexei Mikhailovich decided that if the man was crazy, there was no point in harassing him like that, so he invited the expert into his office. He then asked the poor guy again, "What's the matter?"

He explains again, and again it's clear he's crazy. He says the skull is his. Not in the sense that it's his property, but that it's his own skull, part of his skeleton. Well, Mikhalych, a patient man, asks how it's possible that his head is still there—and therefore his skull is there too—while he insists it's on the table? The homeless man couldn't explain it, but he insisted it was true.

An expert, a local forensic doctor, came. He looked at it, turned it over, and said the skull looked quite old. But to be sure, they needed to test it. "Let me at least take a scraping," he said. He took a sheet of paper from the table, pulled out a scalpel, and began scraping a sample from the bone. The homeless man clutched his head and screamed in pain. Clearly, the man was insane. The doctor shook his head, as if to say, that's the diagnosis. He stopped scraping, put the remaining material on a piece of paper, and put it in his pocket. The homeless man calmed down.

So, they decided to quickly check what they could and commit the homeless man to a mental hospital.

Alexei Mikhailovich called around to the local police stations to see if there had been any reports of graves being opened—they hadn't. He started looking for a hospital where he could place the psycho, but no one wanted to take him, saying there weren't enough facilities, the hospital was overcrowded, understaffed, and all that—even if you took him to Moscow, we wouldn't accept him. The major realized he'd have to go through his superiors, and it was evening—why bother them unnecessarily? He decided to keep the old man until morning. He told the duty officer to position him so his skull was visible, otherwise he'd start screaming. He gave the order and went home.

He came back in the morning, and there was a homeless man lying on a bench near the police station. He went to find out what was going on, and it turned out to be simple. The smell was so bad that the duty officers couldn't stand it and kicked the old man out into the street. He cried and begged to come back to guard the skull, but then he calmed down and fell asleep. And they say, when he asked to go back, he told them a story about a sorcerer or an evil spirit, so much so that they dubbed him "the evil spirit," referring to the unbearable stench.

A doctor arrived by midday and did a preliminary analysis of the scrapings. The bone was old, but it didn't look like it had been buried. But he couldn't say for sure that the find was over a hundred years old.

Alexei Mikhailovich called the local history museum to see if any remains had ever disappeared there. They hadn't. He made several more calls, all to no avail. Then he went to a meeting, then went out on a call, and got busy... That evening, he arrived at the site, and the homeless man was still there. He felt sorry for him, so he brought him some food. Well, it was time to go home, and there was nowhere to locate the homeless man. He decided to figure it out the next day. He just told the duty officer to feed the old man in the morning.

So, three or four days passed like that. The homeless man continued to live on the bench. Mikhalych talked to him, and some of the story began to unravel. It was a coherent story, it must be said, but improbable, and the major dismissed it as the ravings of a sick man.

The homeless man claimed he had once lived a good, prosperous life, and had everything he needed. But he couldn't remember where he lived or what he did. He had a wife and children. But he had forgotten their names. He did remember being terribly afraid of death. So afraid that he suffered from insomnia. And he remembered a black man who knew everything about him. Where and how he met him—he couldn't recall. He couldn't even remember his face, only his eyes—dark and whiteless, like those of an animal. And a reddish glint in the pupils. And for some reason he asked the man, "How will I die?" And the man replied, "Because my skull will be crushed." And then he asked again, "How can I protect myself from that?" And he said, "Carry your skull with you always and take care of it—you'll live as long as you want." "Do you want it?" he asks. "I do." Then take it," he hands him the skull. And as soon as he took it, he forgot his name, the way home, and everything else.

Alexei Mikhailovich sympathized with the homeless man, but he had a lot to do, and his report was still sitting idle with the department head. Then the major went with him.Let's talk. It so happened that at the time, a maniac was being hunted across the region. The case was high-profile—the newspapers were covering it, and management was demanding reports every day. Basically, there was no time for a homeless person.

The boss got angry. He cursed the major, saying, "You can't solve anything yourself, I'm taking the rap for everyone!" He stormed out of the office and went to investigate in the heat of the moment. There was no case, the skull wasn't evidence, and the remains were unclaimed, meaning they should be destroyed. And since the homeless person wouldn't leave without the skull, he was about to get it.

He grabbed a hammer, took the bag containing the skull, and, right on top of it, "bang-bang," smashed it into pieces. "Here," he said, "give it to him." Mikhalych ran out into the street, and the homeless person was lying by the bench. His head was deformed beyond belief, dead...

They called the same doctor, who just threw up his hands—he'd never seen such an injury in his life, there was no blood, and the skull vaults were broken.

They decided to hush up the case. The body and the skull fragments from the bag were cremated. Any documents were destroyed, just to be on the safe side.

And yes, the maniac was soon caught.