*Author's Note: Any and all persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.
Disclaimers: This story has been edited by me, using Microsoft spell-check. You have been forewarned.
*****
Danny O'Neil strolled the halls of Connelly Community College, leisurely making his way to his World History 201 class. It was May, the sun outside was blistering the Oakleaf, Texas college campus. Inside, the air conditioning was blasting cold air, bringing out goosebumps.
"Damn, it sure is nice," he couldn't help but smile.
It was nice, not having to stress over maintaining a 3.0 GPA to continue receiving his Hardship Scholarship. It was nice, not having to work the grueling early morning shift at the Sonic Drive-Thru restaurant. It was nice to not have to pinch pennies. It was nice not having to worry about where he would sleep when the dormitories closed down for semester breaks.
Final exams were next week; Danny had been maintaining a GPA of 3.89 and planned to continue to do so. But it still was quite nice, not having to stress and worry and sweat and panic.
He entered his class and looked around. Even as he leisurely strolled, he still managed to be ten minutes early. He almost slapped his forehead. Normally, he'd have been scrambling because he'd just be getting off his morning shift, still wearing his uniform.
The class did fill up quickly. Just as Professor Darwin was about to stride into the classroom 'Hitler' Eischenbach scurried into the room. Danny didn't know what the young man's name was; everyone called him Hitler.
He motioned to the young man, indicating the vacant desk next to his. The young man pushed his unfashionable glasses up his nose, smiled and flopped down into the desk.
Professor Darwin droned on and on in his nasally whine. Finally, the class was over.
"Hey, I'm Danny," Danny said, holding out his hand.
"Huh? Oh, I'm Daniel," the young man said and took Danny's offered hand.
"Daniel? Not Danny?" Danny smiled.
"No, and not Hitler, either," Daniel smiled.
"Yeah, why they call you that?" Danny asked as they ambled out of the classroom.
"Oh, some assholes found out I'm fascinated by World War Two," Daniel grimaced. "See, my great great grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz; they managed to smuggle my great grandfather out of there so I try to find out all I can about it."
Makes sense," Danny shrugged. "Well, got to run to my Calculus class."
He pushed his shoulder length blond hair back out of his eyes and did actually run to his next class. Daniel pushed his glasses up his nose then walked toward the library.
The next few times they ran into each other, Danny and Daniel chatted. They went to the cafeteria and ate lunch. Danny looked at Daniel's ham and Swiss sandwich, then at Daniel.
"Yeah, I eat ham," Daniel smiled. "Only thing Jewish about me is my name and my cock."
"Dude, huh?" Danny laughed. "Don't need know that."
Daniel did disclose that he was worried about the end of the semester. His hometown was Paulton, Louisiana, and barely had enough money for the bus ticket home.
"Almost nineteen hours, nothing to eat but bus station food, if I can afford it," Daniel said. "Then what? My mom doesn't have the money send me back. I'm here on a Hardship."
"Dude! I was too!" Danny said.
"Was? Win the lottery?" Daniel asked.
"Kind of," Danny shrugged. "Grandfather died."
"Dude, sorry," Daniel gasped.
"Shit, don't be," Danny shrugged. "Last time I saw him I was like two or three, you know?"
Daniel Arthur Franks had been brought up in an overly religious home. His father believed in the adage 'spare the rod, spoil the child' and beat Daniel black and blue for even the mildest of infractions. In 1971, Daniel enlisted and was shipped off to Vietnam.
Upon his return, after two tours of duty, he was a hardened man, with a thousand yard stare.
Arthur made a move to strike Daniel for a smart mouth comment he'd made at the dinner table. The only thing that saved Arthur's life was Betty, Daniel's mother grabbed the heavy saucepan from the stove and brought it down on Daniel's head.
"You're not welcome in my house no more, boy," Arthur grunted through his wired jaws.
"Uh huh, big man, took a woman save your sorry ass," Daniel sneered. "Next time I see you, you might not be so lucky."
The next time Daniel saw his father was at his father's funeral. Daniel had married, had fathered one daughter by the time of his father's death, but neither Arthur nor Betty had ever met Daniel's wife or daughter.
Betty was quick to follow her husband. Daniel brought his wife and two daughters to that funeral. Then he moved his wife and two daughters into 2122 Browner Street in Oakleaf, Texas. It was the home he'd grown up in, the home he'd suffered years of physical and mental abuse in.
And he continued the cycle. His wife and his three daughters learned to keep their mouths shut, learned to keep quiet, learned to have supper on the table the moment Daniel came home, learned to have their rooms clean, their clothes clean.
Millicent, the oldest daughter complained to her mother about her father's inappropriate, unwanted touches. Gwen slapped her daughter across the face for telling such a blatant lie. Millicent quietly went into the back yard and hung herself from the oak tree Daniel had climbed as a child.
Jennifer did not tell her mother about the unwanted touches. She stole some money from her mother's purse and her father's wallet, walked to the Greyhound bus station and was never seen again.
Betty, named after Daniel's mother, met and married Gary O'Neil. Daniel made no secret about the fact that he did not like Gary, thought Gary was not good enough for his baby, the apple of his eye.
A few months after their marriage, a few weeks after telling Gwen and Daniel that Betty was expecting their first child, Gary was struck by a hit and run driver. He died of his injuries a few days later. The hit and run driver was never identified.
Betty did notice her father's satisfied little smirk as they lay her husband to rest next to Gary's grandparents. Thankfully, Gary had a life insurance policy and it paid double. Betty was very careful with the forty thousand dollars and told her father, even though she was now a widow, she would not be returning to live under his roof.
In an effort to curry favor with Daniel, though, Betty did name the child Daniel Gary O'Neil.
Gwen died of a massive heart attack when Danny was two, and that was the last time he ever saw his grandfather. At her mother's funeral, Daniel Franks grabbed Betty's breasts and told her it was time for her to come home and take her mother's place.
Danny was seventeen years old, working at Sonic, getting good grades in school when his mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Thankfully, she went quickly. For the next four months, Daniel continued to go to high school, continued to work, and maintained the apartment he and his mother had shared. Upon acceptance to Connelly College, Daniel did let the landlord know he would not be renewing the lease.
A friend let him crash on his couch when the first semester ended. That friend had moved on by the time the second semester ended. Rose Martinez, his on again, off again girlfriend persuaded her parents to let Danny crash on their couch when the second semester ended. Danny found out, the Martinez family expected slave labor in exchange for the right to sleep on a cramped, foul smelling sofa. Mr. Martinez actually timed how long Danny took to shower and shut the water off after five minutes. And Mrs. Martinez had no culinary skills either.
Halfway through his third semester, Danny saw a letter from Tannenbaum & Associates Law Firm in his dormitory mail cubicle. It would seem that his grandfather, his namesake had passed away.
"How much?" Danny asked, mouth open, when Roger Tannenbaum revealed that Danny had inherited Daniel A. Franks' entire estate.
The stock portfolio alone at the time of Daniel Franks' passing was worth an estimated three hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars. The house, all nine hundred and sixty square feet was also his.
"I mean, with the attached garage, it's probably more like eleven hundred square feet," Roger said. "But, beats the dorm rooms at Connelly, huh?"
"Depends," Danny had smiled. "How many guys I got to shower with at twenty one twenty two Browner?"
"As many or as few as you want," Roger had smirked.
Danny's first thought as he surveyed the house was to tear it down and rebuild everything. Arthur and Betty Franks had bought the newly constructed home in 1950, and had done very little to the house. Daniel Franks saw no need to change anything; change cost money. So the original fixtures were still in the home when Danny walked into the home.
A look into the first bedroom showed a small twin sized bed and a bunk bed. The closet even had some girls' dresses, some dolls and toys and a few school books.
The second bedroom had a closet full of men's' clothing. Danny had no idea how small his grandfather had been, but none of the clothing would fit his five foot nine inch frame.
On the top shelf of the bedroom closet, he found a box of VCR tapes.
'Teen Sluts' and 'Cock Sucking Teens' and 'Back Door Baby Dolls' were a few of the titles Danny read. He actually felt a little queasy. The bedside table held a few magazines, all with titles hinting at teens having sex with older men, or incest and again, Danny felt queasy.
Scandurro Construction sent out a representative. The man sneered at Danny, walked through, said he'd draw up an estimate and left. A week later, an estimate for tearing down the structure was submitted.
A second company sent out an extremely obese man that complained and grunted through the house. His estimate was basically the same; tear down the existing structure and begin again.
Priestly Brothers sent Michael Priestly out. He shook hands with Danny, walked through the house, looked at everything, even crawling up into the attic with a flashlight, then came back down again.
"Them fixtures? There's people going crazy for them on EBay," Michael said. "That's a claw foot tub in the hall bath and if my guess is right, it's the original. Needs to be resurfaced but that wouldn't really take much."
He recommended taking the pipes and hot water heater out of the ceiling. He pointed out that the attic was in sore need of insulation and they could also install air ducts before doing the insulation.
"You want to put in central air? Hall closet would hold the inside unit," Michael showed Danny what he meant.
"Do it," Danny said.
"Uh, let me get back to the office and work up the estimate, okay?" Michael said.
"Huh? Oh, oh yeah," Danny giggled.
The renovation took seven weeks. Annie Priestly, Michael's wife had helped Danny pick out a few pieces that went with the mid-century fixtures.
