I Never Smelled Him

Yes, an actual carny:

The decomposed remains of a carnival worker who was reported missing 10 years ago were found in a Bronx home after a water pipe sprung a leak, authorities said yesterday.

Dwayne Perkins said he went to 911 Ogden Ave. to check on his grandmother Monday evening and stumbled upon the ossified corpse of Michael Johnson in the basement.

As Perkins peered into a dank corner of the basement to inspect a pipe that was spitting steam, he spotted the old bones.

“I was ready to leave when I looked down, and I saw a ball covered in dirt, but when I looked closer, I [realized] it was a skull,” said Perkins, 40.

“It just blew me away.”

He called the police, who discovered a jacket among the heap of bones and rotting flesh. Inside the jacket was Johnson’s identification.

“The cops said the bones were in a disarray, probably because some cats, rats and dogs may have gotten to it,” said Perkins, whose family has owned the house for 35 years.

His uncle, Ray Stirrup, even had a workshop in the basement and was flabbergasted by the disgusting discovery. “Man, just thinking about it — I’ve been sitting here, doing my little projects, and he’s 15 feet behind me. I never smelled him,” said Stirrup, 56.

Johnson had been reported missing in his native state of Ohio and in New York in November 1997. He was 50 years old at the time.

He had been renting a $40-a-week room on a third floor of the three-story, 106-year-old house that’s just a stone’s throw from Yankee Stadium, after befriending fellow carnival worker Charles Byrd, Stirrup’s stepson.