Laurence Kapinga: Walking the Streets of Dundalk
I got the train up to Dundalk and met with Laurence at the start of the summer. I could see him from the station, waiting for me outside the front door of his house.
Thursday, May 30, 2024
We were walking down one of the main streets of Dundalk. It wasn’t too dissimilar to every other walk I’ve had down a street of an Irish town. A few sole traders. A few pubs. A few beeps. A few stares. They knew. There was a stranger walking the streets.
A head popped out of the car zipping by us and screamed a friendly scream out at Laurence.
“Yeoooow.”
“YOOO!” Laurence returned the jeer.
I smiled a shy smile back towards the jeerer.
“You know The Mary Wallopers?” Laurence asked me.
“Yeah,” I said.
“That’s Charles, right there.”
“Are they your boys?” I laughed.
Laurence smirked. “They live not too far from here.”
“Oh it’s an everyone knows everyone kinda place,” I said. “And what is Dundalk to you now?”
“Dundalk will always be home but in so far as what it is doing for me now, everything is in arm’s reach which is quite comfortable —” Laurence was cut off by the loudest and most protracted beep my ears have ever had the misfortune of being subjected to. The beep of a thousand lonely, frustrated men.
Laurence’s casual but confident stride was impeded as we both cowered.
“I thought they wanted to say hi to you also,” I said.
Laurence laughed.
A man slammed on the breaks and got out of his car in the middle of this significant artery running through Dundalk. I hid behind Laurence. I felt safe. Laurence had the demeanor of a man who could talk a man off a bridge. Maybe not this man.
The man rushed to the car behind to berate the beeper. A scolding ensued. It was the kind of scolding that would summon the most buried of childhood traumas, even for those in attendance.
There was a brief silence.
“Oh wow. And that’s a bit of the buzz as well?” I said, taking it in.
“You know what?” said Laurence, slightly shook. “I’ve never seen that before.”
I laughed. “I don’t know what fucking led to it but she was up his arse a bit.”
“Yeah, they didn’t need to be beeping like that. And they learned very quickly.”
“Yeah.”
“Everyone’s getting hit by cars though nowadays around Dundalk,” said Laurence. “One of my mate’s got hit by a car. This priest hit my driving instructor’s car, out of all people. And then these two people going at it. I think it’s just that summer vibe.”
We ambled down this Dundalk street and arrived at Mo Chara, a contemporary pub with a traditional spirit. Laurence introduced me to a few people enjoying an afternoon pint. They were quick to welcome me. A Dundalk welcome. Laurence turned to the bar. The young, charmingly rugged barman extended his hand.
“Sorry, man,” the barman said to me as he shook my hand. “Wet hands. There’s a lot of wet hands in Dundalk, isn’t there Laurence?”
Laurence nodded.
I didn’t know what he meant but I laughed at the nuances that filled my mind.
The barman handed us a tattered menu. “Ah, look at that. The menu is falling apart.”
We looked down and inspected the options.
“Are you a vegan or anything like that?” Laurence asked me.
“I’d consider myself pescatarian,” I said. “I eat fish. You?”
“I’m… I’m… I’m not an anything.”
“I’m me,” I joked.
“I’m Laurence.”
I ordered the poached eggs and Laurence ordered the Baby Got Back before we walked out the back to the beer garden.
We sat down and started talking about clubbing being a young man’s game. Find somewhere else to drink. Find something else to sniff. The incessant attempts to justify a rollover turns one very old, very quickly. A late-evening gig suits us better, we agreed.
“There's a lot more to be said about someone that's playing their own music,” Laurence harked, “and everyone's in the same room, and it's almost like they understand. Like, they get it. They have some sort of language that they have between each other, that they're in that room for that reason.”
“Yeah.”
“I just kind of feel like,” continued Laurence, “when someone's written music and they're presenting it to you and there's a room full of people that resonate with it, maybe for different reasons, it's like there's a Venn diagram: We all connect because of this certain thing and there's no words that you can even try to surmise.”
“Do you think that unspoken shared experience that you would have with your fellow gig goer is more powerful than the idea of speaking about it?” I asked. “I suppose commonality is more powerful sometimes. Where do you draw the line between discussions that need to be had and then some things that are better left unsaid?”
“Yeah. I don't know. I feel like something that's a bit more —what's the word — tran-scen-dental?
“Yeah, transcendental.”
“Yes. You know the one.”
I laughed.
“Like, where it just goes beyond your understanding at that moment. That was class, wasn't it? And that's as much as you need to say sometimes.
“Fair.”
“I almost think even with good things and bad things, there's only so much that you have to say because it's already felt. You're already feeling it. And I feel like sometimes trying to explain it in words, it's too overwhelming at the moment but then maybe down the line you'll have the words to say it. Whether it's a breakup or you lose someone in your life or something like winning a trophy with your football team or getting some sort of success within what you're doing. And you just don't have the words to say at the moment, you're just overwhelmed with the feeling. But after the fact, you may be able to look a bit more laterally and be like, Oh, this is actually how I felt at that moment. And then we can talk about it.”
“Yeah.”
“But, yeah,” sighed Laurence, “words, man. There's only so much they can do for you sometimes.”
“What kind of kid were you?” I asked. “Were you the kid to express yourself and be open about how you feel?”
“I think just growing up in an African house was definitely a big factor… There wasn't really any room for that. I don’t know.” Laurence traversed the fibres of his mind for an analogy. “You know Courage the Cowardly Dog?”
“Yeah.”
“No matter how scared he was — he would see the most frightening things — but then the guy would just be like, You dumb dog!” Laurence raised his hand threatening a slap.
I laughed.
“That's what it felt like sometimes. You don't have the words, so you're a kid trying to express yourself to your mam or your dad and they’re like, Would you stop annoying me!”
Our food came out on silver trays. The baby did indeed have back. A sizeable pulled pork sandwich was placed in front of Laurence and humbled my poached eggs.
“The friends that I was around early on,” Laurence continued, “maybe they had a similar experience where they were kind of limited in how they could express themselves. But, nonetheless, people I grew up with, up until a certain point, they were pretty conservative and there was no real room for being too expressive.”
“Have you had an experience where you've been forced to teach these people, or try and guide them in the right way?” I asked. “Is it more important to at least be that pillar that does steer them in the right way or is there a point where you can’t have them in your life anymore?”
“I guess because ultimately you still care for these people, yeah,” said Laurence. “I definitely feel people do deserve a chance, but it does need to get to a point, where, if it's bringing you down and this person isn't trying to meet you halfway — or any part of the way — then you may have to face the hard truth and just understand that they need to figure things out by themselves. I don't feel like it's my job to do the most for people. It's easier said than done of course because you’re navigating what you see as logic with emotion. You feel these things but you also know something else.”
We had nearly forgotten that our food was sitting in front of us. Laurence looked eager to eat. I insisted that he started tucking into the pulled pork. Strands of wilted spinach were getting caught in my mouth.
“In recent months, recent years,” I said, “how does it feel for you being Black and Irish? Again, even that idea of putting it into words, it must be so difficult.”
“The older I get anyway, the more apparent it is to me how layered it is to be Black and Irish… Because growing up… I would never really think of my skin color until someone calls it out to me, whether it's a slur or something, and then you just don't know how to react to it… You go home to your mam and you're like, This guy called me this, and your mam doesn't know how to navigate it because she grew up around black people so this racism is new to her as well…”
Movement in my peripheral vision distracted me. “Oh my God” I gasped, looking at the red wall that we were leaning against. A giant spider appeared from a crack between the bricks.
“Whoa, that is massive!” exclaimed Laurence.
It proceeded to excrete on the wall a substance akin to Tipp-ex.
“This guy has been going crazy on this wall,” I said, as, upon further inspection, there was a white substance scattered all across the red paint.
“He must have been,” said Laurence. “There’s actually spiders that size in my house because the house is so old.”
The spider scurried back into the wall through the crack it appeared from, its rotund body finding a way to squirm back into obscurity.
“How do I feel to be...” Laurence collected his thoughts again. “I kind of feel like there's a responsibility on me to be proud of who I am. My Mam's Kenyan and my Dad's Congolese. Going home and understanding where they're from and that that's an extension of me, but then taking from that and using it to my own foundation because my foundation wasn't as reassuring as there's. They had their grandparents, great-grandparents. The whole family was around them to uplift them but also keep passing the baton: This is where you're from. That is where you're from. I think that's helped inform how I feel, being Black and Irish. Understanding the history of this place is as much mine as it is my Caucasian counterparts.”
“How did your parents meet?” I asked.
“They actually met in Poland. They were studying in Poland.”
“What brought them to Ireland?”
“Celtic Tiger,” said Laurence, bluntly. “Ireland had a lot of money. A lot of immigrants moving here. And it was easy to get an Irish passport. That’s pretty much it.”
“Ok.”
“I do remember we actually moved to London but it was a blip. Like, we were asylum seekers in London, then we moved to Dublin, and then we moved here when we had our papers and all that shit.”
“Do you have compassion for your parents and their experience? You said earlier that they were dismissive of you, but then understanding that they had so much going on.”
“Yeah, there’s definitely compassion to a degree. I think going back to Kenya helps me understand where my Mam came from, the things that her family and her siblings went through. Because you're always told, We didn't come here for no reason. When you do come to learn about where they come from and why they did the things that they did you just learn to understand a bit more. Not to get too into it, it isn't to say it's the right or wrong thing or I would have done things that way, but I understand. I couldn't imagine what I’d do in that position unless I was in that position myself. It's easy to say I would have done this, that and the other, but I really wouldn't know. So, I can appreciate when push comes to shove, you just have to do what you feel is right.”
“Do you want kids?” I asked.
“I don't know,” said Laurence. “You know what's interesting? I've seen this sort of discourse where — and I get it — people don't wanna have kids because of the overwhelming climate change. I don't know. I do like the idea of it. Once I'm comfortable, once I feel like, Okay, I can keep up with this. Yeah.”
“This being the kid or life itself?” I jumped in.
“Both. Like life, a kid is so constant. A kid is a constant thing. They’re just never turning off. You're either thinking of them or you have to be there doing something for them, until they're able to do shit for themselves. Yeah, I don't know. When I think of it in those terms, maybe I should wait. But what about you?”
“Yeah, I definitely think so,” I said. “Who knows when that right point will be but I can imagine I’ll just be ready for it. I can imagine you as a dad,” I said, mimicking Laurence shushing a crying baby in his arms.
Laurence laughed.
“I feel like I would be willing to sacrifice a lot in order to raise a child. If something was to happen where I was told I was going to be a father, I don’t think I would be scared… Financially, I'd be terrified.”
“I think as well,” Laurence continued, “people do surprise themselves every time. Like you just sort of assume form when you have to.”
“Definitely.”
“Whether you're unexpectedly becoming a parent or something just happens in your life, you just have to adjust. You have to. Life keeps going.”
“A lot of people in our generation,” I said, “are always aiming for the right moment, the right moment, the right moment. Sometimes you just have to figure it out as you go along.”
Laurence and I finished our meal. We left the metal trays behind on the wooden table outside. He asked me how long I had left in Dundalk. I told him it was about an hour until my train back to Dublin. He decided to bring me to the pier along Dundalk harbour. He seemed enthusiastic to show me. We plodded along the streets. There were more jeers coming out of cars. They were mostly attached to a thumb raised out the window. I referred to Laurence as the Mayor of Dundalk. He laughed. Someone had told him that before.
We arrived at the pier. Laurence pointed at the pub he works in on one side of the harbour and then over at the verdant hills that overlook Dundalk and nudge Carlingford closer to the Irish Sea on the other side. There was a Samaritans number pinned to a lifebuoy cabinet beside a desolate shipping container. Talk to us.
“Have people taken their own life here?” I asked.
“You would see a lot of drunken people just beyond that container, mostly chilling, but definitely going through it, for sure,” said Laurence.
A local man behind us had just hopped out of his van. He was wearing jeans and a polo, greying, and had a plump figure. I assumed he was in his fifties. He closed a metal gate behind himself that closed off a loading bay beside the pub. I assumed he was delivering some stock. I assumed he’d probably been doing this for years. The gate slammed shut.
“What do you see?” he asked from behind us. “What are you looking at?”
Myself and Laurence turned around.
“What are we looking at?” Laurence clarified.
“Yeah, did you find anything?” the man asked.
“The future,” said Laurence, throwing his arms open towards the north. “The future is out there.”
“No,” the man said. “The future is that way.” He pointed south.
Myself and Laurence laughed.
The man pointed north. “Been there, done that. I remember that was all the exact same as it is now.”
The man finished locking the gate and jumped back in his van.
Laurence turned to me. “Dundalk is a liminal space, in a way. Anything could be happening anywhere, and you come back to Dundalk and it's the exact same.”
“So does the past and the future even exist here?” I asked.
