High Noon at Bellevue

The paint from the Sistine Chapel was still wet on Michelangelo’s hands, as he wiped them clean on his Mexican poncho and walked boldly into the Jerusalem street at high noon.

“This town ain’t big enough fer the two of us!” he shouted at Einstein, who was sitting on a Harley Davidson, eating a peach and quoting Sigmund Freud.

“Get off that there funny—looking critter and face me like a man.”

Hamlet and Faust were sitting on the sidelines, making up Exquisite Corpse poetry. They stopped when they heard the commotion and began to compose a one—act rap musical about a cannibal who finds life and love in a Southern Baptist church camp.

“I’m gonna give you till the count ‘o three,” Michelangelo threw his poncho free from his shooting arm and spit in the dust.  Hitler had just returned from dropping a bomb on Hiroshima, and was sick and tired of being persecuted for being a Jew.

  He entered the street just as Michelangelo began the count.

“One!”

Einstein climbed off his Harley and walked boldly into the street despite the begging and pleading of Marilyn Monroe.

“Two!”

Hitler ran within shouting distance of Einstein and shouted in a concerned voice, “Remember! E=MC²!”

“Oh shut up,” said Einstein, as he watched the Roman guards swarming around Jesus of Nazareth, who was carrying a cross towards Calvary. For a moment, Einstein thought of helping him, but he decided that he had other things to attended to. Instead he made up a song on the spot, which went something like this:

“Remember when we murdered the Jews?

Remember when we tortured their kind?

Remember when we drank of their blood

Like it was the darkest red wine?”

 

Goebbels, who had just returned from kneading bricks for Pharaoh in ancient Egypt, took particular offense to this. He was going to say something, but he was in a hurry to help form the Nazi party.

“Three!”

In the second that passed, Hitler murdered all the Jews including himself, the stock market fell, and so did seven unlucky U.F.O’S into the Empire State Building. Suddenly, a loud shot rang out as Michelangelo fell to the dust.

Einstein, who was thinking of either becoming a shoe—maker of creating an atom bomb, looked onto the roof of the saloon and saw Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lowering a rifle and standing in a cloud of smoke. He was standing next to Walt Whitman.

“Thanks!” Einstein waved.

“Your welcome!” Mozart shouted back with a huge grin on his unshaven face, and waved enthusiastically.

“Too bad,” said Mozart, turning to Whitman who was thinking of going on a high protein/low fat diet.

“I was aiming for Einstein.”

 

The End

 

*Hospital in Manhattan; usually associated with the treatment of the insane.