A New Jersey wedding reception, with its own cigar bar and a roller at work

On Saturday, October 28, 2023, he worked a wedding reception in New Jersey. The party filled an open-sided pavilion — a timber roof, a corrugated metal wall, a stone house strung with lights just beyond it — and behind his chair the words CIGAR BAR stood in light-up letters.

His table was dressed in white with a black top: whole leaves of tobacco laid out on a towel, candle lanterns, a glass of cedar spills, the open boxes and the press.

He rolled seated, at eye level with the guests, and they came to him: men in shirt and tie standing two deep to watch the leaf go round, one filming on his phone, another reaching across the table for the cigar he had just finished.

By the end of the night those same guests were lined up with him in front of the table, a cigar in one hand and a glass in the other. He had met none of them before that night. “Looking forward to seeing you soon again!” he wrote the next day.

Cocktail hour, the lull after dinner, the stretch once the speeches are over and the room needs somewhere to go: name the window and he will be rolling inside it. Every guest who wants one leaves holding a cigar that was made in front of them.