Tuesday's Choice

"Tuesday's Choice," the first published novella by Henry Romel Guy, is set in the Hilton Village neighborhood of his hometown, Newport News, Virginia. The story revolves around the decisions that are made by the main characters during a single day, Election Day, and how these choices shape an outcome that will impact each of them on different levels.

Newport News' mayor, Carlton Powell, and his wife, Maurine, awake to the first election day in many years when they cannot determine the stakes for their own lives. Carlton will not be on the ballot, and Maurine will retire from her position as a city social worker. Carlton views the chapters to come as blank, and Maurine is reserved, worried that she will reveal her own, similar fears.

Jason Hanson, a recently released prisoner who resides in an apartment above the Powell's garage, is coping with freedom, of all things, and what he is responsible for in his new life. He wishes he could help make the transition better for the Powell's, out of a sense of indebtedness and love, but his guilt over not being able to only makes matters more awkward.

Betty Trance, a city native and employee of a fast food restaurant, wants to do the most with her life each day, even as her options diminish. She is not bothered as much by the inevitable, over which she has no control, as she is over her obvious connections to other human beings, and how to maintain that connection.

Throughout it all is a young man who is attempting to drift out of Newport News as he drifted in, but he discovers some humanity, which he finds appallingly unfamiliar. His instincts are his guide when disappointment has been the terrain. Gestures of kindness make him second-guess his assumed destiny, but this path is also full of risk.

As the characters make their way through the day, their lives intersect in a manner that leaves them connected, no matter how shattered.