Random Happenstance

Still more twist endings! From 1972, the Twilight Zone #42, cover by George Wilson.

A Vietnam vet wants to be his own boss, so he buys a secondhand cab, that turns out to be "The Haunted Taxi." (Story by Paul S. Newman, pencils by Luis Dominguez.) After the ghost messes with a couple of his fares, the vet finds a bullet in the back seat, and gets the seller to admit yeah, a gambler got murdered there. Still, buyer beware, chump! The dead gambler is more accomodating: while he couldn't leave the cab until he confronted his murderer, he's willing to work with the vet to find him. The gambler then wrecks the cab killing his murderer, but his last message to the vet is where he hid his cash, and how to get it. I suspect the vet might be out of the cabbie business after that one, though.

In "The Possible Dream" a young man has a recurring dream for years, of a village, maybe in Ireland? Not somewhere he's ever been, or even heard about; but eventually he and his wife try looking for it. There's a twist ending, that's straight dickery: this one feels like the shorter Night Gallery stories that were sometimes sandwiched between longer features.

Another young couple, burned out by modern life, attend a lecture by "Siddhartha Rama Gaya" on inner peace, in "At the End of His Rope." Siddhartha performs a rope trick to a small crowd, and asks the young man to climb it: he does, finding a new world at the top, a seeming paradise. When he comes back, everyone except his wife and the Siddhartha had left, thinking him a fraud; but they make their way out of this mad world. (Art by Mike Vosburg.)

Finally, the cover story, "The Day of the Palio," written by Paul S. Newman, art by Giovanni Ticci. I suspect Ticci may have contributed more on this one; the backgrounds show a lot of care. Top jockey Tony Marco and his friend Luigi visit Siena, Italy. Which, somewhat surprisingly for these comics, is real; and so is its famous horse race, the Palio di Siena! Tony's brought in as a ringer, but wonders why so many ren-faire costumes...and where did the TV antennas go? They're back in 1672, and the stakes are high: if Tony doesn't win, Luigi gets his ass thrown off the Torre Del Mangia, which I'm sure wasn't specifically built for that purpose, but seems well-suited for it. Luigi is convinced, but Tony seems unsure; and that night is visited by a rival contrade, who give him a sack of gold coins to throw the race. Tony is astounded by the medieval coins, which would be worth a ton, so the fix is in.

Tony leads the race until the last turn, then takes a dive. Oh, well...except, Luigi does get thrown off the Torre, and Tony is left trapped in 1672! The other jockeys in the present wonder why he missed Belmont; while Tony is frantically practicing, to see if he could win the next Palio and return home: Rod doesn't like his chances, in the Twilight Zone.