Beyond Belief Read Online Free PDF Page A

moved nearby to the Edgemont Building on Edgemont Street, where the apartments were much nicer. Each had two bedrooms, a small dining area, a kitchen, and a small living room, but even though they were bigger, each apartment was occupied by two families or two couples, so they were crowded.
    We shared our apartment with Mike and Cathy Rinder, old friends of my parents who were also dedicated Sea Org members. Mom and Dad occupied one bedroom, and Cathy and Mike had the other. Justin and I shared the living room on bunk beds and couches with Mike and Cathy’s daughter, Taryn, and their son Benjamin James, B. J. for short. Taryn was around ten, a little younger than Justin. B. J. was a few months older than I but, by then, we were both two.
    My mom had met Cathy when they were both teenagers and stationed on the Apollo , where they became good friends. While it was a bit odd to suddenly have another family around, I enjoyed Cathy’s great sense of humor and the fact that she drew silly cartoons in which everyone looked like a pig. Mike was a bit different. An Australian, he was quiet and, like my parents, rarely in the apartment.
    We had no reason to complain that the apartment was crowded. It was fun having so many people around, especially so many kids. Because the earthquake had taken out the Fountain Building, B. J. and I had to go to a large day care/kindergarten center for children of Sea Org members located on Bronson Avenue, next to what is now known as the Celebrity Centre. It was far enough that we had to take a church-provided bus. About eighty to one hundred kids went there, from infants up to age six. We were divided into different classes, not so much by age, but by our parents’ status in the Church.
    Most afternoons, I rode the bus home with Justin or Taryn, who was also in the ATA. They boarded when we stopped at the academy to pick up the students there. On some days my brother would take me off when we stopped at the ATA and we’d walk back to the apartment together, stopping for Push Pops from George’s General Store across the street from the ATA. While Justin was a little young to be watching me, the Edgemont was a Scientology building, and perhaps my parents took comfort in knowing that there were other Scientologists in close proximity and that their offices were right on the block. Additionally, there was a roving nanny on duty in the building who would stop by the various apartments and check on the children and was available in case any emergency arose.
    Over the months, B. J. and I were becoming really good friends, despite the fact that he was into bugs and robots, and I was into Barbies and baby animals. He wasn’t a big talker, but I was fascinated by him. He was always teaching me some new fact about bugs or doing a new magic trick. We did pretty much everything together, and it didn’t take long for B. J., as well as Taryn, to become like family.
    Shortly after we all moved in together, we started to see less and less of Mom. Because she was getting the Freewinds going, she was often on location in Curaçao, British West Indies, where the ship was to be based. If she wasn’t in Curaçao, she was at the International Base in Hemet. She would visit when she could, and bring me presents from her travels. Although I loved the gifts, especially the small painted musical jewelry box with a tiny spinning ballerina, they didn’t make her absence any easier. Family time was when I missed her the most. Usually it was just Dad and Cathy who came to the apartment for the hour. Dad would bathe me, read me stories, and we would play.
    That was how the routine went for about a year. The four of us—Justin, Taryn, B. J., and I—formed a makeshift family of our own. Although they weren’t yet teenagers, Justin and Taryn were babysitters to B. J. and me. Together, we hung out, had snacks, and played around. They generally looked after us until our parents came home for dinner or had a day off. All that