For those whose skills leaned more toward brawn than brain, they gravitated toward such places as building sites, where their physical strength was considered a commodity. Although it was an honest living, Thelonious got depressed every time he saw his ursine brothers crowded into a bus or underground train at rush hour, their once-lush fur dusty with rubble and encrusted with mortar. These were not the more diminutive creatures like himself, but rather those of the large and intimidating sort that would’ve been more at home in the rugged mountains of Banff than crammed in with a bunch of stale commuters on a bus or tube train that smelled of wet dog. Many had been brought into the country to take up the slack when the Polish builders began their exodus back home to Poland, Britain and its
