Alligator Shoes

French-Canadian adult brothers Mike and Bin still live with their parents in the working class neighborhood of Cabbagetown in Toronto, their parents who largely support them. Mike works a low paying nine to five job hoping to come out the other end with a long term stable career in the trades. Bin is shyster who doesn’t really believe in work. What money he earns is in flipping junkers. His M.O. in selling them is to tell his customers of some minor issues with the cars so that they cannot come back to him later with the major issues which he doesn’t disclose, he referring them back to the sales pitch and blaming the problems on their improper maintenance. Bin spends most of what he makes at the bar, with his one material extravagance being a several hundred dollar pair of alligator shoes for which he’s long been looking. Despite the differences between the two, they will always help the other out of their frequent scrapes in the old adage of blood, at least theirs and their parents, being thicker than water. Their mother informs them that the youngest of their maternal aunts, Danielle, who is only a few years older than the two of them, is coming to live with them temporarily. Danielle has just been deinstitutionalized from her second psychiatric hospital stay. This temporary living situation is until she can get on her feet and demonstrate to social services that she is fit enough to retain custody of her pre-school aged daughter, Ginny. Danielle added to the household has the potential to tear the brothers apart as one wants nothing to do with her, while the other not only sees her as family but has a greater affinity to her emotionally. Being around Mike and Bin also has the potential to throw Danielle’s recovery off track in coming between the brothers.