'); } -->
ATWATER -- A chain-link fence fronts an abandoned property at Sycamore Avenue in Atwater like a smoke-stained curtain badly hiding a messy room.
Behind the fence a decaying service station named Applegate Mini Mart sits like a building waiting to burn. Fifty gallon drums stand in clumps at the building's edge. A pile of cement and asphalt rises in a far corner of the site like some kind of minor eruption.