It was a mist that gathered thick on the windshield as soon as the wiper blades swung past. The clouds were heavy and low over the scarred blacktop, too tired to make real rain. Everything looked lost, the brick buildings with faded signs in a row waiting in a breadline that never moved, retired school buses dead and rusting, a mossy cop car strategically parked to catch speeders with no one inside. Ghosts policing ghosts. Even the stoplights were dim, the reds and greens switching on their own time, washed out from neglect as an invisible dog barked for ever. He knew America in 1989, the forgotten heart that was a slow, faint corroded beat at best. It was expected when you took the business spur away from 75 with its strip malls and bulk stores but the used-up w***e some still called the