My newest project.

     As I hesitantly pushed on the door’s curved wooden handle, a front of warm air deliciously curled around my face—a stark contrast to the zero degree dry air of that early Saturday morning. I glanced back at the man in the car, unsure of what this Enrico character I was supposed to be meeting looked like. When the car-man didn’t look back, I stepped resolutely into the first tobacco shop I’d ever set foot in.

     The Leaf and Bean in the Strip District, with it's rough red lettering announcing it's location, is constructed of dark wood and decorated haphazardly. A dead streetlight hangs from the ceiling near the entrance, ignoring the gently swaying disco ball a few feet behind it. Across from a semi-oval bar protruding from the left wall is a white door with nine glass panes that leads to their outdoor area. A small indoor roof as been constructed over the door, complete with brightly painted wooden pillars to hold it up. The well-used tables and mismatched chairs have come from as many sets as there are pieces of furniture. But it’s dark and warm and smells significantly less of smoke than I’d expected.

     Turning at the sound of the door is an older gentleman with a long, handknit red scarf drooped around his argyle-sweatered shoulders. His white mustache is stained light brown near his mouth from what I can only assume is too many evenings (and apparently mornings) at the Leaf and Bean. His rectangle glasses have almost no rim and are studded with tiny diamonds over the bridge of his nose and at the far corners of his eyes. This is Enrico.

     I want to say he’s the classic Italian with his hospitable insistence that I smoke a cigar, have an espresso, or at the very least let him buy me some orange juice. I finally accept the juice. Truth is, though, I don’t know any Italians, so I’m not sure if Enrico fits the stereotypes or not. He certainly likes his coffee and cigars, the latter of which remind me of sturdy dead leaves that have been rolled into a cigar shape and produce an alarming amount of thick, white smoke. He smokes three of them over the next two hours as we labor through the manuscript he’s written over the past four years—on his phone. There are no discernible paragraphs and lines don't reach across even quarter of the page, making sentences look more like stanzas in a poem, but there is a clear organization, and I get very excited thinking about turning this into a beautiful manuscript that we can both feel proud of. Occasionally our language barrier prevents clear communication on some of the finer points of grammar, but eventually we come to a consensus on most points.

     We get through the first chapter, and he pleads with me to keep his work a secret. I assure him that I make it a point to not discuss unpublished manuscripts that I've edited, and I will honor that commitment here to the strictest degree. He holds his work so close—“I’m very jealous,” he says—that instead of emailing me what he has (all 200+ pages), we will meet every Saturday and work through the complexities of his work until it is completed.

     And with that, here’s to a new editing journey, tobacco shops and all. Clink.