My life continued . . .

. . . for the next several years as I did my apprentice work as a minion to the various Grand Shovels assigned to this plane --- err, part of the country. Life in California during the 1980s was everything that a minion could desire, actually, since it occasionally seemed as though actual space aliens were running the country. So those of us on minion detail felt right at home. Of course some of us had really cushy assignments during this period. I am thinking particularly of Minion Tom Cruise, who worked his way right up the food chain to become a Grand Shovel in what seemed like no time at all. Some of the others had a more difficult time of it. I am remembering poor Minion Kirstee Allee before she succumbed to the overwhelming plastic goodness of Hostess Cupcakes. It took her right out of contention for Grand Shoveldom, and for several years she disappeared from sight, which given her ultimate size was no mean feat.

But I was more of an average minion, always on the lookout for something that would impress my masters. One day in the late 1980s I was working with Minion Bronson Pinchot on the set of Perfect Strangers, something that passed for Terran entertainment at the time. I was always amazed that no one tapped Bronson as one of us, since he seemed pretty alien even to me, an actual alien. However, I had been delegated to assist him on a secret mission that had to do with Marki Post, and I was spending a lot of time on the set. It was there that I stumbled across the large-jawed woman again that I had last seen at the studio reception years earlier.

She had changed in many ways. There was a harder glint in her eyes, and it was clear that she didn't remember me when she came past pushing the concessions cart for the crew's break. It was the oddest thing. She would pour a cup of hot coffee for each person and then hold it out. I noticed that many of the male crew members wouldn't get too near her, but instead wait for her to safely deposit it on the buffet table.

"What is going on, Bronson?" I asked my fellow minion.

Bronson was gloomy. He was always gloomy while working on that show; back on our home pla --- err, back in France --- Bronson had been a star of the legitimate morplat performances, and it hurt his dignity to appear on the Terran show.

"Oh, she was arrested last week for tossing hot coffee onto the old geezer she married. The fight like likvars and pollulas all damn day and night. I think he might have heard about her work out in the Valley."

"The Valley?"

Bronson looked at me with disdain. "Don't you know about that? It's where people who can't act go to make movies."

"They let them make movies even though they can't act? Gosh, Bronson, I had no idea Hollywood was such a nice place!"

"Yeah, it's peachy. And to make it even better, the movies are only run in certain theatres, or better yet, you can actually buy them on VHS. That way the fans of individual performers can make sure they only see their favorites."

"Does she, " I indicated the woman at the concession cart, who was now doing very peculiar things with a banana for the entertainment of the crew, "have many fans?"

"Her? No, not really. But she gets work, just not top billing. She's what you might call a lady of the chorus, Illuminati."

I studied the large-jawed woman with fascination. Our paths had been crossing since we arrived in the City of the Angels. How would they intersect now?