Novels by David Wealth

At 6:40 on Wednesday morning, there is a man sitting in the pizza shop downstairs eating a slice of cheese with a knife and fork.I stop in the doorway with my keys in my hand. The shop does not open until eleven. The chairs are still stacked on the tables, and the neon sign is off. But the side door is unlocked, because Mr. Russo lets me in early for coffee, and the man at the counter has a paper cup of it already steaming at his elbow.He is maybe forty-five. Gray sweater vest over a white collared shirt. Wire glasses. A neat little mustache, the kind a high school principal might have. "Good morning, Caleb," he says.The voice is warm and unhurried, like oil poured over water. I have heard it on my phone on the first of every month for three months. I never once pictured a sweater vest."Mr. Pike.""Dominic, please. We're practically friends." He sets down his fork, dabs his mustache with a napkin, and smiles. "Sit. Mr. Russo tells me the coffee here is excellent."My feet do not

"Sir, I understand that you are frustrated," the woman on the phone says for the fourth time. "But I cannot lift the hold until the review is complete.""Ma'am, I'm not frustrated," I say. My jaw is so tight it clicks. "I just need to know how long it takes.""Five to seven business days. Possibly ten."I pull the phone away and stare at it like it insulted my mother. Then I put it back to my ear. It is 8:15 in the morning. I am sitting on the edge of my bed with sand behind my eyes, and I slept maybe two hours. I dreamed about a bank vault with my name on it that I could not open."My loan is due Friday.""I am sorry to hear that.""I have over eighteen thousand dollars in that account.""Which is exactly why it was flagged, Mr. Brooks." Her voice stays flat and polite and cold. "Large deposits from an unlisted source, into an account that averages under three hundred dollars, trigger an automatic hold. If you can send documentation showing where the money came from, I can add a note

By the time the counter stops climbing, there are 214 people in my stream, and not one of them is here to hear me.Chat moves so fast I cannot read it. The words blur into a river of white and red. I catch pieces as they rush past.*fat catfish**bro really thought he could scam someone**I came for the roast where's the voice**say something pig*My jaw is tight. My palms are slick against the desk. Every few seconds a new name pops up, a new insult, a new viewer. And every time the number rises, a thin blue line slides across the corner of my vision.**[Viewers: 187... 192... 201.]****[Payment pending: $20,100.]**I do not touch the keyboard. I do not type one word back. Nobody told me to stay quiet. It is just that every time I think about answering, my hands start to shake, and I know that if I open my mouth, I will cry. So I sit. I let the river run over me.Then I do the only thing I know how to do. I lean toward the mic."Hey, everybody," I say, and my voice comes out low and

At 4:41 in the morning, I send my girlfriend two hundred and twelve dollars.I do it the way I always do, with one thumb, still wearing my headphones, my voice scratchy from four hours of talking to strangers. A little checkmark pops up on the screen. *Sent to Bree V.* Then the number in my bank app drops, and I feel the old sting, like pressing on a bruise to see if it still hurts.My name is Caleb Brooks. I am twenty-five years old, and I live in a one-room apartment above a pizza shop in Cleveland, Ohio, where the whole building smells like oregano and the radiator knocks all night like a ghost asking to be let in. Everybody I know has a number these days. Followers. Subscribers. Viewers. In this world, the number is your worth. A hundred viewers means a brand will email you. A thousand means you can quit your day job. A million means you stop being a person and start being a product.My number is about seventy. On a good night, maybe ninety.That is enough to make money, though. R