Identity Crisis on Cuba Street

“Hey Mister Tambourine Man, play a song for me. I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to…”

The strains of Bob Dylan drifted up and down Cuba Street, mingling with the tip-tap of women’s boot heels and the repetitive “thu-thump” of skateboard wheels rolling over the bricks that lined the walkway. Cuba Street was bustling on that crisp, sunny afternoon, and the young Dylan look-alike had picked a prime spot to set down his guitar case and break out his harmonica.

He positioned himself outside of Farmer’s, with his back to an assortment of brightly-colored window advertisements announcing half-price sheet sets and winter sale clearances inside. No other street musicians were occupying that end of Cuba at that time of day, and so the young man’s only competition resided in the inconsistent splish-splash of the bucket fountain as it spilled its water 17, 18, 19 times in a minute.

His prime spot also happened to be one of my favorite locations in Wellington on a sunny afternoon.

On this particular September day, I had chosen to skip the crowded walkways of Lambton Harbor and Oriental Bay, opting instead to plant myself on a bench on Cuba Street with a good book and a good vantage point for one of my favorite pastimes: kiwi watching (the “kiwis” here referring to New Zealanders, not the flightless birds). Sitting quietly on the fringe of things, I could blend in nicely.

As the young man strummed his guitar and belted out tunes in a pretty convincing Dylan-esque drawl, things carried on as usual on Cuba Street around him. Young girls in checkered skirts and long socks, just out of school for the afternoon, went in and out of the $2 shop. A couple weighed down with matching large yellow backpacks strolled by, hand-in-hand. A mother tugged along her daughter, who trailed an orange smiley face balloon in her wake. Clearly they had been past the voter registration van further down the street, where a middle-aged Maori man was trying to entice people to sign up to vote by offering them brightly-colored balloons. As the pair made their way through the afternoon crowd, the balloon bobbed along behind the girl like a cheery afterthought.

I smiled, remembering my run-in the day before with the balloon man. He had approached me with a clipboard and a handful of orange balloons, no doubt ready to launch into a spiel about how important it was to vote in the upcoming national election. He was therefore perhaps a bit disappointed when I opened my mouth and explained — in a painfully American accent — that I didn’t think I qualified.

On the few occasions like these where I found myself confused for an authentic New Zealander, I couldn’t help feeling a little bit giddy. A part of me – a large part, some days – wished that I could fully leave my American identity across the ocean where it belonged. Often, all I wanted was to be a true kiwi.

But, I wondered, as I watched a teenage boy attempt a jump on his skateboard, if I were a true kiwi, would I still look at this scene on Cuba Street the same way? Would I still look at the Australian Hindu woman in a long skirt passing out copies of the Bhagavad Gita with bemusement? Or would I take closer notice of the cracked bricks in the walkway, or the rust spots on the buckets in the fountain? And would I find street musicians like the Dylan look-alike to be annoying as they played the same songs over and over, day after day?

As I pondered this, I watched a little boy in a sweater vest, coaxed by his mother, toss a few coins into the open guitar case at the Dylan look-alike’s feet. The performer nodded appreciatively, his mop of curly hair ruffling with the gesture, and continued with his song. Just as he was about to add his harmonica into the mix, he received an accompaniment of a different, unwanted sort.

The accompaniment came in the form of an apparently homeless man in a rumpled green jacket who whooped and hollered along to the song, hitting notes outside of any recognized by modern music. When the song finished, he strode up to the young man and made a strumming motion while swaying slightly to and fro. His jet-black hair, falling past his shoulders, swayed with him.

“Oi! Boy! Go on, play us another song!” he bellowed suddenly.

The guitarist took the opportunity to sit down and have a smoke instead, trying his best to ignore the man before him. I immediately buried my nose back in my book.

The homeless man, clearly realizing he was getting nowhere, decided to move on to something else. He naturally spotted me sitting quietly nearby on my bench beside the bucket fountain and shuffled over to me. He bent over me, leaning in close and blinking his bleary, bloodshot eyes as if trying to get me into focus. I looked up hesitantly from my book as his lips curled up to reveal a cracked-tooth smile.

“What’s yer name?” he asked in a gravelly, slightly slurred voice.

He didn’t wait for an answer, but instead offered a dirt-stained hand for me to shake. I took it gingerly.

“I’m Pete,” he declared. He smiled again, eyes crossing slightly to look down his bulbous nose. Again, he didn’t wait for me to respond. “Come on with me. Let’s go find us a drink.”

“I…I have to sit here,” I said, in my clearly non-kiwi accent. “I’m waiting for someone.” It wasn’t true, of course, but I didn’t really want to go anywhere with Pete.

Pete just blinked, then grinned again as he processed me.

“You don’t gotta stay here,” Pete said with a cackle. “You’s a kiwi now, and kiwis sit wherever the fuck we want to.”

I had no response for this. But, thankfully, the Dylan look-alike decided to start in on another song. Pete, clearly forgetting the conversation we’d been having, stood up straight and whooped in the young man’s direction.

“That’s it!” Pete yelled, and off he bounded down the street away from us, clapping a rhythm of his own.

I exchanged a quick glance with the Dylan look-alike from my perch on the bench. We both smirked slightly as we watched Pete striding up the street, a long, low “Hey-ey-eyyyyy” drifting back to us over the heads of oblivious passers-by.

I thought back to Pete’s slurred words, “You’s a kiwi now,” and almost laughed; I liked the sound of it. I shared another knowing look with the guitarist then, who smiled as we heard Pete cackle from up the street.

Yes, I thought. Just then, perhaps we were both pretending to be someone else.