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.
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