Simply Colorblind

     It was the local hang out for all teenagers at that time: the Cartwright Sweet Shoppe. The parlor was bustling with young people gathered around the soda fountain, ordering slices of cakes and copious amounts of candy while others chatted or danced the Charleston to the fast beat music wafting from the old radio. The Sweet Shop was a landmark in Jacksonville, Georgia, and it belonged to no one other than "Daddy" Benjamin Cartwright. Daddy Cartwright was the wealthiest man on that side of town and everyone knew it and tried to stay on good terms with him in case a time of need came upon them.

     Daddy Cartwright was a big business man and loved nothing more than his money. Well, he did love one thing more than that, and that was his family. Daddy Cartwright had two sons and a daughter: Richard, Joseph, and Hazel. Everyone knew not to mess with any of the Cartwright children, or Daddy Cartwright would place a hit on you quicker than you can say "Aw applesauce!" And, boy, was he proud of those children.

     Richard, the oldest, was the most intelligent of the three and was in college studying to be a doctor, though Daddy Cartwright preferred that he went into the military or the Air Force. Hazel was the most beautiful dame east of the Mississippi and Daddy Cartwright knew it. He adored Hazel and gave her whatever she desired. But he wished to have her wed as soon as possible, as she was fast approaching her twenty-fourth birthday and was the only bachelorette of all her friends, all of whom were already wed and bearing children. However, Hazel wanted cared for nothing more than working towards her medical degree as a nurse, like her mother.

     But out of all his children, Daddy Cartwright was most proud of his youngest child, Joseph. Joseph was a young sweet-talker that made all the ladies swoon, with the bluest eyes you'd ever see outside of the ocean and sky. He aspired to be a fly boy in the U.S Air Force, just like Daddy Cartwright wanted. Out of all his children, Joseph was the most special. He was the youngest, the most charismatic, and the most social of the Cartwright heirs. He could have had any girl he wanted, but the girl he wanted was the one he wasn't allowed to have, for Joseph had fallen in love with his family's servant's daughter, Josephine.

Josephine was the only daughter of the Prices, a black family who had been serving the Cartwright family for the last thirty years. Josephine's father was a loyal friend of Daddy Cartwright since childhood, when his father served Granddaddy Cartwright. Daddy Cartwright treated the Price family much better than most Negros were treated in those days. He gave them access to all of his business establishments, where blacks were allowed, while his competitors banned them. He also bought clothes for Josephine and paid her sickly mother's hospital bills. Hazel played with Josephine and Richard often sent her all sorts of sweets and toys from Michigan. The Cartwright and the Price family were practically inseparable and Daddy Cartwright didn't care what other folks though of it. He was his own man and had the money to do what he wanted.

     Joseph was a year older than Josephine, but often played with Josephine in his father's garden and took her to the Sweet Shop where they shared milkshakes and doughnuts and took silly pictures in the photo booths. Instead of staying with the kids his age after school, he would walk to Josephine's school, a school for colored folk down the street, and walk her home to the Cartwright compound.

     In the beginning, Joseph and Josephine were just friends, laughing and playing together in the lawn, sharing candies at the ice cream parlor, and visiting the zoo to see the silver back gorillas. But as the years progressed, the pair grew older and matured. Josephine became more developed, her hips grew rounder and her breasts began to bud. She was maturing into a young lady and Joseph into a strapping young man. The yard games became less and less frequent until they stopped all together. Joseph had to focus on graduating so he could join the Air Force, and Josephine had to keep her grades acceptable so Daddy Cartwright would pay her college tuition for nursing school in the North. But poor Joseph could never get sweet Josephine's smile out of his mind.