My Son, My Son, Redemption of a Psychic

Prologue:

Worshiping the rich and famous

by Harriet Guardino, Mama

The idols speak deceit, diviners see visions that lie; they tell dreams that are false, they give comfort in vain. Therefore the people wander like sheep oppressed for lack of a shepherd.

(Zech. 10:2)

Let it be known that the rich and famous are no smarter, or wiser, or more spiritual than the rest of us. So why do we idolize them?

The short answer: because they are rich and famous.

Because they are rich and famous, they can mesmerize us to vote for a certain political candidate. Because they are rich and famous, they can influence what clothing we wear, what we eat, what we believe, and what vehicles we drive. They can advise us on what to learn in school and what to avoid learning. They can reassemble our social standards, and make us rethink our moral values.

They can redefine right and wrong, truth and lies, good and evil, God and Satan.

So why do we allow it?

Because they are rich and famous!

I suppose the real draw is the uncontested power that the rich and famous wield over the rest of us. One can argue whether they earn that power or not; yet there is no question that they possess it, and that they use it. For my son, David Marius Guardino, fame—and the power that accompanies it—was the way out of his mundane, lower-middle-class life. Only God knows why, but my precious first-born decided early in life that he would shoot for the stars and become the richest, most famous man in the world!

David set out to prove that he was smarter, wiser, and more spiritual than the rest of us, especially celebrities, business tycoons, politicians, and other influential people.

In order to achieve this, David had to rub shoulders with the rich and famous, to become one of them, and ultimately, to outsmart them. Thus, he became their spiritual and financial advisor; he became their Psychic to the Stars.

Like myself, my husband Mariano Monte Guardino, agonized over David’s career choice. Despite this, he couldn’t help but exude a bit of pride when David started interviewing celebrities for a supermarket tabloid. He compiled a scrapbook with clippings from the tabloid and other publications. That tattered old scrapbook survives today, a vivid testimonial of the gullibility of such celebrities as Willie Nelson, George Burns, and Mohammad Ali.

But my son the psychic didn’t limit his interviews to the living. The story goes that David contacted the spirit of Elvis Presley during séances in Graceland Mansion in Memphis. He relayed a song by former Beatle John Lennon from the grave; Marilyn Monroe confessed to him about her lover, JFK. And Adolph Hitler apologized for his wrongdoings during World War II.

David proclaimed himself to be The World’s Greatest Psychic. His family, the Guardinos, realized the shameful truth from the beginning: David was simply a fraud.

He was a business consultant who professed to use his psychic powers to make people wealthy. Ironically, he had no apparent business sense, and perpetually ran from his creditors. He died in prison, hopelessly in debt to the Internal Revenue Service.

He claimed to have the ability to mesmerize estranged lovers into returning, by meditating on their clothing and other personal items. He freely offered advice on how to have a successful relationship. Yet he was married no less than nine times, and was not always faithful to his wives.

David swore repeatedly that his psychic powers were a gift from God. Yet, he described himself as an atheistic existentialist and hedonist, who was woefully misunderstood by his predominantly Christian family.

David chose to believe he was helping his clients. During the height of his fame in the 1980s he charged them fees up to $10,000. There was no black magic in him, he declared, only white magic. He never placed curses on people, and in fact, used his psychic powers to break longstanding curses.

I never gave up seeking my son’s salvation. For three decades, I kept a journal that detailed the spiritual warfare that I, David’s sister Pat Cummings, and scores of other Christians, fought on David’s behalf. In 1981, a prayer partner gave me the scripture: I will give them [him] a heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they [he] will be my people, and I will be their [his] God: for they [he] will return to me with all their [his] heart. (Jer. 24:7)

I lived by this and other scriptures twenty-four/seven, until the day of David’s deliverance in October 2006, under the care and guidance of a Roman Catholic priest in a Knoxville, Tennessee homeless shelter.

A few months later, while serving time in prison for income tax evasion, David entered into eternal life. The family sang Amazing Grace at his graveside funeral; no other song would suffice.

Foreword:

Confessions of a high school sweetheart

by Elizabeth Ronald Barratt

"Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves…"

(William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene II)

I remember the moment I met David Marius Guardino. To the casual observer, it was just an ordinary school day. But for me, that noontime encounter marked a permanent change in my teenage life. It signaled my first step into young adulthood.

David and I were instantly drawn to each other. At that first, riveting glance, I immediately sensed a reuniting of two souls. Innately, in some distant time and unnamed place, I felt, we were once friends and lovers. And here we were again, after an absence of eons in mind, heart and place.

It was a golden, warm day in October, 1957. Red-brown sycamore leaves drifted about the corners of the walkway where we stood, in the cafeteria line at Gilroy High School.

My heart was racing. It wasn’t as if I’d never seen David before that moment. I’d had my eye on him for weeks, watching from a distance as he strode past on campus, waving and flirting with the older girls. I wondered how to approach him without seeming too obvious. Then, that fall day, in the lunch line, he turned, looked straight at me, and remarked, Your hair is so glossy. I love long, shiny hair on girls.

The flattering catchphrase should have been my warning. Instead, I melted and returned the chatter. Well, I think blonde-haired boys with blue eyes are the cutest, Trying to appear coy, I watched his reaction out of the corner of my eye. He seemed pleased, but distant.

As an entering sophomore, David was a year ahead of me at Gilroy High School. He was the new guy this little California town, having moved down from Grants Pass, Oregon with his family shortly before classes began.

With a population of 5,000, Gilroy at the time was an unremarkable farm town, lying at the agricultural end of the Santa Clara Valley, about a half-hour drive south of San Jose.

But by late summer, 1957, an air of excitement permeated the town. Gilroy’s first radio station had just begun broadcasting. It was called KPER to make it sound like a fun spot on the dial. After David’s father, Monte Guardino, became the new station’s first manager, the owner offered David, age 15, a Saturday afternoon DJ slot. The San Jose Mercury quickly picked up on the unique father-son situation, billing David America’s youngest disc jockey.

Saturday afternoons found David in the broadcast studio, emceeing a show featuring two hours of rock and roll hits, plus interviews with outstanding students from the high school. Even before the fall semester started, he was a celebrity. Everyone at school tuned in to the show, especially the girls, who mailed in song requests on perfumed stationary. Lipstick imprints on the envelopes were labeled S.W.A.K. for Sealed With a Kiss.

David was the B.M.O.C. (Big Man on Campus) even before school started. Once classes began, girls rushed up to him between periods, gushing out record requests for the following Saturday’s show. Even though I later found out he had no interest in the popular music he featured, David was always glib and gracious when the girls approached him.

After that initial noontime encounter in the cafeteria line, David and I began to meet up at the after-football game dances, held in the dimly lit, musty old school gym. After an hour’s prancing to the bop, the hop, and the swing, the music would shift gears, drifting gently into something soft and romantic. Slow dancing, our arms around each other, David and I would gradually move into the darkest corner, hiding from the chaperones. I would burrow my face into his neck while he softly kissed my shoulder. In that blissful state, I wanted the music to go on forever. I thought he did, too.

I felt so special to have landed the most popular guy in the whole school. My days on campus were more like floating from class to class than walking on terra firma.

David was trim and athletic and took excellent care of his health. He didn’t smoke or drink. He was a track medalist, so running practice always came first, during the school week. When he wasn’t staying after class for sports, we’d walk home together. While he carried my books, we’d chat about the events of the day, about politics, religion, world history and literature, items we’d covered in class, or read at home. Once at my house, we’d head downstairs to the basement rumpus room, where my record player was located. David had told me he couldn’t dance the current rock and roll dances, and asked if I would give him dance lessons.

He seemed not to even know which current songs were popular, something I found surprising, given his radio job. This was the era of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper, Fats Domino, Pat Boone, and a proliferation of do-wop groups. At first, I overlooked his feigned bewilderment, and began to show him the popular dance steps. For weeks, we spent those school day afternoons, clinging closely, dancing and kissing. The sessions began to last longer, going beyond kissing, unimpeded by parental watchfulness.

For some weeks that fall, my parents were away on a European vacation. I’d been sent to stay at my grandparents’ house, only two blocks away. No one knew David and I were meeting alone after school at my house. Before long, the dance lessons were put aside and we headed instead to the rumpus room daybed and increasingly passionate making out sessions.

I was a well brought up, but naive young lady. I had no idea that mere kissing could lead to strong feelings and yearnings that I’d never experienced before. The new emotions were both exciting and scary. I knew we should stop but wanted to go on. My apprehension grew. David began pressuring me. I reluctantly resisted. I was frightened we’d be caught. But our secret, romantic lull stretched on. The warm autumn afternoons slid into chilly deep November.

By Thanksgiving, my parents were back home. With a watchdog for a mother, my life went back to one of restriction and constant monitoring. The basement lovemaking with David abruptly ceased. When he visited, I was informed we could sit in the living room with the door open, our two feet on the floor and our hands in our own laps. David’s and my only getaways were on the weekend afternoons when the rest of his family were in San Jose visiting the relatives. Then, we’d head several blocks down the street to his house and make out in his bedroom.

On Christmas Eve our dream bubble burst. After less than six months on the job at KPER, the station owner summarily dismissed David’s father. What should have been a happy holiday occasion in the Guardinos’ new Gilroy home turned into a nightmare. With a large family to feed, the finances were thrown into sudden turmoil.

The job loss also affected David. Although he was asked to remain at his Saturday DJ show, he quit in support for his father. When Christmas vacation was over and classes resumed, the few girls who still rushed up to him with a gaggle of record requests were turned away, told to listen to another station.

No one on campus was more disappointed than David over his change of status. No longer the B.M.O.C., he was angry, and spent hours plotting revenge against the KPER station owner. He asked me to write a poison pen letter to the man’s daughter, a homely, gawky girl. David said he’d tried to seduce her the previous summer, before we’d met. He casually mentioned he thought some sex would make her feel better about her unattractive appearance.

Often, his simmering rage was directed at me. He ordered me around in a dictatorial tone, citing his immigrant forbears and claiming it was the way of a Sicilian man to control the woman. When I balked at his commands, he’d pinch me hard enough to leave bruises. Other times, he’d reach an arm across his chest and grab the opposite shoulder, as if about to lash out and strike me. When I objected to this threatening stance taking, his response was, A Sicilian man hits his woman when she doesn’t obey him. Since I’d always found Mr. Guardino to be a polite, mild-mannered gentleman, I found it hard to imagine him ever knocking his wife around, especially with five children looking on. When I asked whether his father struck his mother, David shrugged and changed the subject. After the pinching stopped, he often criticized me, or launched into harsh moralistic diatribes.

Besides finding myself victimized by this newly revealed hostile side, I also learned about a relationship David had maintained with an older man, John Worth, whom he’d first met in 1955 as an eighth grader in Grants Pass. Acting as a presumed mentor, and starting with their shared interest in horses, John had begun to groom David in the arts of fine dining, occasional gentlemanly drinking, and sexual prowess. John’s wife’s busy newspaper job left him ample free time to cavort in his private studio with a mistress named Betty. As he courted David’s friendship and trust, John also began to give the thirteen-year-old personal instructions in the art of seduction, arranging sessions where Betty introduced David to sexual intercourse and related techniques.

John instilled a piece advice called the Four F's Principle. David thought it was an amusing modus vivendi and often repeated it to me, Find ’em, Feed ’em, F*** ’em and Forget ’em.

By the time I met him, David claimed he’d already had several teenage affairs during his freshman year in Grants Pass. In Gilroy, as he and I grew more physically comfortable together, he began to seduce me, following the instructions for success that John had taught him. John was coming to a horse show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, and had offered to rent a motel room for David and me where, in all privacy, David could relieve me of my virginity.

My parents were hardly going to allow me to go to San Francisco on an overnight sponsored by a man they'd never met. David then tried to set up a correspondence between John and me, apparently in a vicarious attempt to see if I would consent to allow John to seduce me. On one occasion, when passing through Gilroy alone, John phoned my house and asked me to meet him downtown that evening at a restaurant for dinner. My mother, of course, was immediately suspicious and made me hang up. When I later told David about the call, his comment was, Well, John likes his women young, so he probably wanted to take you to a hotel room and try it on. When I asked him whether such a scenario didn’t disturb him, David shrugged it off and said it might have been good experience for me as John was so skilled with women.

In later years, when David became a self-proclaimed Psychic to the Stars, he labeled himself a hedonist. I recalled his description of the teenage tutelage at John’s studio. John always encouraged David to keep a stable of young women for sex, and never to miss an opportunity to go for it. Even late in life, I discovered, he was still following that advice.

In June, 1958, with our school year at Gilroy High ending, David planned to spend several summer months in Oregon working for a lumber company. He enlisted my services to write letters to former high school girlfriends in Grants Pass under his name. I was to line up for him a set of potential bed partners. I was so in love with David and so anxious to hang onto him as my boyfriend, I did not recognize the abuse pattern. Instead I complied, eagerly enabling his personal plans. Then my mother found the letters and that was the end of my playing personal secretary.

Still, during that summer, even with his stated sexual goals regarding the waiting Oregon girls, David demanded that I stay home, not date anyone else, and wait faithfully for his return. He required me to write him a daily letter. After several weeks, a harsh message came in the mail, saying he was breaking up with me because no letter had arrived that day. After several notes soon arrived in a cluster, he wrote back, saying the breakup was off and our relationship was back on. I wondered how he could consider me so dispensable, yet somehow I still clung to the notion that he needed and wanted me.

Today, of course, the emotional abuse patterns, such as physical threats, bruising, isolation and emotional deprivation are recognizable signs. But in the late 1950s, there was no such understanding. David’s self-centeredness, lack of guilt over the consequences of his actions, immaturity, refusal to control his impulses, need for instant gratification, and predatory sexual behavior were manifesting into a dangerous pattern.

By the end of the summer, 1958, the Guardino family moved south of Gilroy to the larger city of Salinas, where his father was hired at KSBW, a new area television station. In September, before the new fall term started, I phoned David to say I wanted to break up with him. I cited the distance between our towns, and said we should be free to see other people.

He was shocked and crushed. He borrowed his father’s car to drive up to Gilroy and pleaded with me to stay with him. But by then, I felt, I’d had enough of the commands, the restrictions, the physical punishment, the attempts to hold me back and keep me down. Better, I thought, to meet other boys and see what the rest of the playing field looked like.

In Salinas, he later told me, his courting and sexploitation continued along the same lines as in Gilroy. I missed him terribly. Even with the difficulties that had reared up in our relationship, there was a magnetic pull between us that wouldn’t go away.

I fanaticized over David, imagined him making his play for the attractive young women in Salinas, the nice, innocent girls like me, who, out of a romantic crush, were willing to present themselves to him. I wanted to know their names, to warn them, and secretly to bring David back to me.

I knew David could be a real charmer when he wanted to be. He told me about one particular Salinas conquest, a young Italian exchange student. I was astounded when he related this seduction. She’s Italian and Catholic! I exclaimed. Italy’s morally a far stricter country than America. When she marries, what’s her husband going to say on their wedding night when he finds out you robbed this young woman of her virtue?

David then confessed that he was trying that year to qualify in track to make the 1960 Rome Olympics trials. If successful, he said, he would go to Italy and marry that exchange student. I felt so left out. He was telling me he wanted to marry another young woman while occasionally dating me. I was still in a state of love addiction. I was casually seeing other boys but wanted desperately for us to get back together and for our love to return to those sweet, halcyon days in Gilroy, when life seemed precious and simple.

As our high school years wound down, David and I continued an off and on relationship. Occasionally, I invited him to formal dances at Gilroy High. In return, he asked me to his Senior Prom in Salinas. I knew, prior to that evening, that his father had given him cash to cover gasoline for his car, a corsage for me and nice meal for the two of us at The Spindrift Restaurant in Monterey. That evening, after David picked me up, he asked if I would like to stop by the Cypress Bowling Alley in Monterey for a cup of coffee. When I asked about our planned dinner, he replied, I had to use the money to buy myself a new pair of kangaroo leather track shoes. I only have enough left over to buy gas for the car. So, I can either buy you a cup of coffee, or else we can just head straight for the prom. They’ll have punch and cookies there. The rest of our evening was horrible, I was hungry and cranky,