"Born in California. High school, graduated. Year later, moved up to Oregon. My dad was a World War Two vet, in Iwo Jima, where they raised the flag on the island," said David. "He was in a fox hole on that island. He used to beat me every night, with a belt. Because I'm all wired, right? I was a little kid jumping around and playing. He'd have to strap me to set me straight, and get me to go to sleep. Even when I went to jail, they had to whip my ass to calm me down. Once you whip my ass, then I'm good. I'm fifty-five. I don't do drugs, and that's the reason why I'm able to walk around. Take a look at a heroin addict. That shit'll eat ya up.

I joined the service when I was like twenty-one. For discipline. My dad said, 'Son, I don't know what to do with you. I'm tired of beatin on ya. I was a combat medic. Then I was still young. Twenty-four or twenty-five by the time I got out. And then dad died. So I flew back to L.A. And we had a big house, $85,000, back in the day. And they sold it, each of us got a part of it. Dad always told us, 'Now look: This is your kids' house. When I go, you guys are gonna inherit this. You guys invest in a business or property. They can't take property away from you.

And that's what me and my sister did. We moved up north. We bought eight acres for $8,000. A thousand dollars an acre in the woods. We bought a big old mobile home. Then my sister died...and I left. I met a woman, and another woman, and I ended up here in '96. And that's my story. Been out here for almost thirty years.”

My sister and I were in line outside of the food bank. I was watching her, trying to figure out if she was mentally ill or not. She was speaking quickly, making jokes and telling me about all the great foods they had inside. We were along a wall, in a long line of people. Some of them had little carts for carrying their food home. Others were leaning against the wall. There were some old people and some young. On the ground, there was a broken helicopter toy.

People were let into the food bank two at a time. When you got in, you went to a computer and a woman took your ID (If you had one) and wrote down how many people you were. My sister insisted that I go in with her, because then she would be two people, and get more food. You were given a card that listed the number of items you could take from each shelf.

There were rows and rows of donated foods. It was an odd mix of things. Lots of canned foods, but also flowers and day-old cupcakes. My sister had a lengthy discussion with the volunteer about vegan cheese substitutes, and acted overly excited about the soft, old vegetables.

My parents offered to help my sister on multiple occasions. They sent money, called, offered to help her find work. But the relationship was strained. My parents thought that a lot of my sister’s symptoms were caused by an aversion to work. She thought that my parents couldn’t understand her lifestyle choices and mental-health challenges. She was halfway between seeing herself as being a critic of the system pioneering a new nomadism, and being desperate to change her circumstances. I couldn’t tell if she was faking it or not. I didn’t have much experience with mental illness, and I wondered if she played it up for sympathy and as an excuse to herself for why she found herself in these circumstances.

My friend Adam was training to be a doctor. He gave me a list of the symptoms of bipolar disorder, and I referred to it, trying to decide if the way my sister acted was a normal result of her personality, or a warning sign for a crippling mental illness. After a few hours of trying to figure it out, I started to wonder if maybe I was crazy too.

There was a lady in a red coat standing in front of the Amazon headquarters. She was being completely ignored by everyone. She was standing by a stand full of books. Inside the books, there were paintings of people in a green field with lions and birds and other animals. The book was about God's kingdom on earth, and what it will be like. I asked her what it said in her book about homeless people.

After God's kingdom comes, she said, there wouldn’t be any more problems. She said that we would be able to grow our own food. We’d be able to build our own houses. It said so right there in the Lord's Prayer. "On earth as it is in heaven." There were pictures in the book that showed this. "There will be peace between humans and animals," it said. She paused, and looked down at her Bible for a moment.

"You know," she said. "I used to be homeless. I was in a shelter for a year after I came out here from Atlanta."

Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them.

And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.

Revelation 21:3-­4

I walked all over Seattle. I met a man who balanced on a ball for a living. I met a man who balanced a cat on his back for a living. I saw a lot of people who it was impossible to meet because they were on their cell phones. I overheard conversations about how no one has conversations anymore. I watched people walk right past people on the street who were clearly disturbed, to the point of being helpless, and do nothing. So who was really crazy?

There is a place in Seattle called Pioneer Square—it’s a tourist spot with a big totem pole. When I was a kid, my mom would always warn me about the "derelicts" and say "don't make eye contact. Seattle is the child-abduction capital of the United States." I went there and sat down and watched the pigeons flying. There was a man with long hair talking to the sky. He had a long conversation with it, and I wondered what he was saying, and if he was getting answers. There was another man in a parka who walked a few paces and then flung his arm up and down. Then he turned around, walked a few more paces, and then did it again. Over and over, like a Swiss clock.