Billy T. James

The other day in English class our teacher showed us a few videos on youtube. These videos were of a famous New Zealand comedian of late, named Billy T. James. The character he portrayed in some of his videos was the epitome of the modern-Maori stereotype; very funny stuff. She then asked us to write a short story about him and how he would fit into, or more likely, not fit into, today’s society. She also said to make it funny. Well, I tried.

Billy T. James lumbered into Foodtown, slipping every few steps in his socks and jandals. A middle-aged lady with a stony expression glared from behind her counter.

‘Hey ‘cuzzy!’ Billy yelled across to her, ‘Howzit?’
Her face flushed, then she pretended to busy herself, wiping the spotless counter and glaring at that instead.

Unaffected, or perhaps just plain oblivious, Billy walked along the aisles. He came to the deli section and began an inspection of the food before him, his hand patting a large belly spilling over the top of his stubbies. He wrinkled his wide nose at a small jar, and picked it up for a more in-depth inspection. The lady from the counter walked past, now pretending, badly, to readjust a pile of bananas while her eyes never left the man squinting at a label on a jar of feta.

‘Look at this fancy-schmanzy…goat’s cheese?’ He said to himself. It was loud enough, though, to make the check-out lady bristle once again. ‘Twelve bucks…yeah right!’

He then came to the deli counter and stopped in his tracks in front of a certain product.

‘‘Scuse me, bro,’ He said to the young man behind the counter, ‘what’re you trying to sell here?’

‘Well, that would be sushi-’ He began.

‘Su what?’ Billy said loudly, ‘Looks a bit weird to me, looks almost like seaweed…’

‘That’s because it is, sir, and in the middle there is raw fish, it really is quite nice, from Japan-’

Cutting the man of once more Billy said, ‘I didn’t hear anything past seaweed, mate! Trying to sell seaweed! Sorry to break it to you mate,’ he said between laughter, ‘that’s one thing that’s never gonna sell. You can get seaweed from the beach, man!’

Leaving the poor man quite confused, and with a slightly open mouth, he continued to walk, muttering to himself in disbelief.