HEARTBREAK MOTEL

THE DESERT ROADS THAT TIM MCVEIGH TRAVELED ARE LITTERED WITH DRIFTERS AND DOWN-AND-OUTERS

The sun doesn't shine on the desert towns where California, Arizona and Nevada converge. It glares, searing the asphalt highways lined with truck stops and trailer parks until the air shimmers with heat. In the neon nights, the listless and the luckless -- dropouts, boozers, gamblers and speed freaks -- take refuge in cheap motels. No one knows how many drifters travel the roads, how many alienated Americans hole up in motel rooms, in anger or despair. No one can even say if there are more of the rootless in this desolate corner of America than elsewhere. Theirs is an invisible...

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