“You know what they say about paranoid people?” Michelle asked as she flashed her ticket to the station agent. “They’re afraid people will do to them what they themselves would have done.”
The story of a Toronto woman haunted when a local band begins using an iconic photo of her criminal father on their street posters, “My Dad is Your Band Logo” appears in issue 72 of Broken Pencil (accompanied by an illustration from Beena Mistry).
This story took a long time finding its way to print. Written in 2013, submitted in 2014, accepted in 2015, and finally appearing now in 2016. Whew!
The beginning takes place at the Lincoln Theatre, located at 386 St. Paul Street in St. Catharines. Once a first run movie house, I remember the theatre in its final days as an independent repertory theatre, where you could catch anything from midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, to cheap double-features.
To my ever lasting joy, the building still stands and the gorgeous marquee has been preserved. A welcome spot of colour and a proud maple leaf welcomes visitors to the downtown.
In the opening of the story, sometime around 1978, the narrator attends the Lincoln with her father to see Disney’s Pete’s Dragon. Now, when I wrote this story nearly three years ago, I had no idea Disney would be doing a re-make of Pete’s Dragon, but I am charmed by the synchronicity of both “My Dad is Your Band Logo” and the new version of Pete’s Dragon coming out on the same week.
Passing by the Lincoln always makes me smile. Rumour has it the owner has converted the inside to his own private screening room. For decades, the marquee has been blank, but in the last year, it has broadcast this cryptic message:
A few nights ago, as I walked past the Lincoln, I saw a pile of marquee tiles thrown out in the trash, forever dashing my hope of further messages, or showtimes.
Chris kuriata - 1978 
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