13. Where’s your brother?

Bell. ALEX enters store.

ALEX: Hi.

JANET: Hi. Did you forget something?

ALEX: No.

JANET: You need more peanuts?

ALEX: Chuckles. Wow. No, I have enough. I just wanted to leave my number for Jung. What? What is it?

Beat.

JANET: Guess you guys haven’t kept in touch, eh? (beat) He left . . . a long time ago.

ALEX: He left?

JANET: Yeah. He left home when he was sixteen.

ALEX: Didn’t know that.

JANET: You remember Jung’s temper? My dad was the same. Even worse.

ALEX: What happened?

JANET: Uh, well, during one of their arguments, Jung said that Appa was a horrible husband, that he was treating my mom like a slave. And Appa hit him. Hard. Jung was hospitalized for a few days. After he was released, everything seemed to be back to normal. Then, one day, my dad went to get the money from the safe and it was empty. So was Jung’s room.

ALEX: Wow.

JANET: Once in a while, I catch my dad looking out the window. Most of the time he’s looking for illegally parked Japanese cars, but sometimes I think he’s looking for Jung.

ALEX: Where is he now?

JANET: I don’t know. Heard he was in rehab for a while. He meets my mom at church sometimes.

Beat.

ALEX: Sorry to hear that.

JANET: That’s okay.

Beat.

ALEX: That your camera bag?

JANET: Yup.

Beat.

ALEX: Are you a photographer?

JANET: Yup.

ALEX: How’d you become a photographer?

JANET: OCAD [Ontario College of Art and Design]. How’d you become a cop?

ALEX: Cop school. (JANET chuckles.) No, my life changed a lot after I moved out of this neighbourhood. I forgot how much you used to follow us around.

JANET: Can I take your picture?

ALEX: Uh, sure, okay.

JANET gets her camera. ALEX does a “hot cops” pose. JANET chuckles.

ALEX: Just playin’.

JANET: What did you have for breakfast?

ALEX: For breakfast?

JANET: Yeah.

ALEX: Cereal, some fruit, coffee.

JANET begins shooting.

JANET: What kind of cereal did you have?

ALEX: Mini-Wheats.

JANET: Have you always had Mini-Wheats?

ALEX: No, used to be Frosted Flakes — when I was a kid. My dad liked Frosted Flakes. We’d eat it together. We had this routine, this tiger thing we’d do. “They’re grrrreat!” Yeah, Frosted Flakes.

JANET: What about Cheerios?

ALEX: Nah.

JANET: What’s wrong with Cheerios?

ALEX: For me, it had to do with what the cereal did to the milk. That bowlful of sweetened milk right at the end was what breakfast was all about.

JANET: Like the chocolate tip at the bottom of an ice cream Drumstick?

ALEX: Exactly.

Beat.

JANET: Wanna see?

ALEX: Sure. (JANET shows ALEX his picture on the LCD screen.) Wow. I look so . . . artsy. (JANET giggles.) What?

JANET: I was actually on my way to check out a site for a wedding I got tomorrow —

ALEX: When I came in?

JANET: When you came in.