Durando
Gilapi’s Retro Car Rental
by Zach Smith
At first, I thought the
sign might have been a joke. “Durando Gilapi’s
Retro Car Rental – DeLorean for Rent –
Runs like a dream – Next Left.” They
couldn’t have said much more than that on a
street sign.
A DeLorean? Really? They
hadn’t made one of those in thirty years,
and although they were a symbol of the ’80s
(thanks to a certain movie), they weren’t
ever very common; only about nine thousand were
built.
If it wasn’t a joke,
then the rental price was probably astronomical.
But I wouldn’t know unless I went there, and
quite frankly, just seeing a DeLorean in person,
maybe getting to sit in one, would be a
worthwhile experience. I had to find out.
The place was strange. A large, wide parking lot
filled with cars, all quite old, all outside, yet
somehow they all looked new. I found the manager,
maybe the owner, an older, mischievous-looking
man. I assumed he was Durando Gilapi.
“I’m here about
the DeLorean?” I asked.
“I had a feeling,”
he replied.
“So… how much?”
He quoted me a price. It
wasn’t bad. In fact, I had exactly that much
cash in my wallet at that moment… kind of
strange, now that I think about it.
Money was exchanged for
keys, a paper was signed, nothing seemed all that
formal. And then I took the DeLorean out.
It drove just like I
expected, and when I say that, I mean that yes,
it went back in time. Even knowing that was
impossible, that’s exactly what it did. And
I drove through my hometown, just as I had
forgotten it, lo these many years.
“It went back in time,”
I said when I returned the car.
“I know,” said
Durando. “All my cars do. Each one goes to a
different era. The Subaru Outback will take you
to the early ’90s. The Model T will take you
to the ’30s. See the USA in my Chevrolet as
it was in 1953. I even have a Cugnot Fardier à
Vapeur that’ll take you all the way back to
1787. Or you can see World War II from the (albeit
limited) comfort of a Willys Quad… safety
not guaranteed.”
“Understandable,”
I said.
I looked over the field of
cars he had, the fleet, the boneyard; the
possibilities seemed endless. And then I came
across one that stood out of place even there.
“What in the world is
that?” I asked.
“That’s a Tesla
Cybertruck,” said Durando. “It’s
from the future.”
“That’s what cars
look like in the future?”
“That one does,”
he said.
“It’s hideous.”
“Indeed,” he said.
“It comes from a hideous time. Would you
like to take it out for a ride?”
“No thank you,” I
said. “I’ll pass.”
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