The townspeople outside the reservations had a very superior

Host: The sun was low, bleeding through a haze of dust and orange smoke that hung over the small town like an old blanket refusing to lift. The main street — a row of half-closed shops, a barber, a hardware store, and a diner whose sign buzzed weakly — seemed to hum with that particular kind of stillness that only comes when a place has forgotten its own heartbeat.

A battered pickup truck rolled by, kicking up gravel, the sound echoing against faded walls and familiar silence.

Inside the diner, the air was thick with grease, coffee, and ghost stories. The radio murmured some half-broken country song, its signal caught between stations.

Jack sat in the corner booth, his elbows on the table, his coffee untouched. His eyes were steady, grey, the kind that had seen too much of a place to still believe in it.

Jeeny sat across from him, her fingers tracing the rim of her cup, her gaze on the empty road outside. The light through the window caught the faint curve of her hair, turning it to dark fire.

Jeeny: “James Welch once said something that’s been on my mind: ‘The townspeople outside the reservations had a very superior attitude toward Indians, which was kind of funny, because they weren’t very wealthy; they were on the fringes of society themselves.’”

Jack: “Yeah,” he said after a pause, his voice low. “I know that kind of funny. The kind that isn’t.”

Host: A truck horn moaned somewhere in the distance — long, tired, fading into the endless fields beyond.

Jeeny: “It’s strange, isn’t it? How people at the bottom still find someone to look down on. Like it’s the only way they can convince themselves they’re not drowning.”

Jack: “Not strange. Predictable. Misery’s got a pecking order, Jeeny. Always has. You can be broke, desperate, broken — but as long as there’s someone below you, you feel taller.”

Jeeny: “That’s a kind of blindness, Jack. A sickness.”

Jack: “No. It’s survival. People need illusions. You take away the illusion of superiority, and you take away their last piece of pride.”

Host: The door creaked open, letting in a gust of cold wind and a few flakes of dust. A man in a worn jacket walked past their booth, nodding at Jack before heading to the counter. He looked tired, the way only someone from a forgotten place can look — tired in his bones, not his body.

Jeeny watched him go, then turned back.

Jeeny: “So it’s fine, then? Pretending you’re better than someone who’s struggling even more?”

Jack: “No, it’s not fine. But it’s human. That’s what Welch was pointing at — the irony of it. Poor townspeople mocking the reservations, when they’re just two sides of the same neglected coin.”

Jeeny: “But doesn’t that make it even worse? That they’d rather feed on someone else’s pain than face their own?”

Jack: “Maybe. Or maybe they’ve been taught that’s the only way to matter. You grow up being told you’re nothing — so you start measuring yourself by someone else’s nothing.”

Host: The radio crackled, the static momentarily drowning out the hum of the room. Jeeny’s eyes narrowed as she studied Jack, as if searching for something deeper beneath his cynicism.

Jeeny: “You ever think about what that does to a soul? When your worth depends on someone else’s loss?”

Jack: “It rots it. Slowly. But it’s the kind of rot that looks like survival until it’s too late.”

Jeeny: “You sound like you’ve seen it.”

Jack: “I grew up near the border of a reservation, Jeeny. I’ve seen kids my age spit the word ‘Indian’ like it was a curse, while wearing shoes with holes in them. And the same ones would still talk about how they were the ‘real Americans.’”

Jeeny: “Did you ever say it too?”

Jack: “No,” he said quietly, “but I didn’t stop them either.”

Host: A long silence followed. The hum of the diner’s refrigerator filled it like a heartbeat.

Jeeny: “That’s the thing, isn’t it? The silence. It keeps everything broken. One group bleeds quietly, and the other looks away — pretending the mirror shows something different.”

Jack: “Because if they look too long, they’ll see themselves.”

Host: The waitress came by, refilling their cups without a word. The steam rose between them like a ghost. Outside, the sky had turned the color of bruised metal.

Jeeny: “You know what Welch’s line reminds me of? How prejudice feeds off insecurity. People don’t hate others because they’re different — they hate because they see something familiar and can’t stand it.”

Jack: “Right. Like looking in a cracked mirror and blaming the reflection.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The townspeople weren’t mocking wealth or class. They were mocking the part of themselves they couldn’t fix.”

Jack: “So they made someone else the problem. It’s the oldest trick in history. From the Romans to Jim Crow to now — people need scapegoats. It gives their suffering structure.”

Jeeny: “That’s tragic.”

Jack: “That’s humanity.”

Host: A freight train wailed in the distance, its call dragging across the open plain. The light inside the diner dimmed as clouds swallowed the last of the sun.

Jeeny: “But don’t you ever think things could change? That people could learn to see the truth?”

Jack: “You mean empathy? Yeah, I’ve seen flashes of it. But not enough. Not yet.”

Jeeny: “What if we stopped calling it empathy and started calling it honesty? Just being honest about who we are — about what we’ve done.”

Jack: “Honesty’s dangerous. It breaks the spell. Makes people see they’re not so different from the ones they despise.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s where healing begins — when you stop pretending the line between you and them is real.”

Jack: “You sound like someone who still believes in people.”

Jeeny: “I do. Because I have to. If I didn’t, I’d be no different from the ones who forget how much pain we all share.”

Host: The rain began to fall, slow and deliberate, tapping against the diner’s roof like a heartbeat returning. Jack stared out the window — the muddy street, the blinking light, the figure of the man from earlier now walking home with his collar pulled high.

Jack: “Maybe that’s why Welch wrote about it — not to condemn, but to remind. To make people see what smallness does to the human heart.”

Jeeny: “And to remind us that dignity isn’t something you steal by comparison. It’s something you build by compassion.”

Jack: “You really think compassion can fix this?”

Jeeny: “Not fix. But soften. Like rain on hard soil. It doesn’t change the ground overnight, but it makes it possible for something new to grow.”

Host: Jack leaned back, his hands wrapped around the warm cup. He didn’t answer right away. His eyes followed the raindrops sliding down the glass — merging, separating, finding paths of their own.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, one of the reservation boys used to come to town to sell beadwork. Everyone laughed at him. Called him names. But he kept coming. One day, he gave me a small bracelet — said I looked like I needed something honest.”

Jeeny: “Do you still have it?”

Jack: “Yeah.” He pulled his sleeve up slightly. A faded, worn band of colored threads clung to his wrist. “Haven’t taken it off since.”

Jeeny: “That’s his testimony — to your humanity. And yours to his.”

Jack: “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just a reminder not to let my own pain make me cruel.”

Host: The rain softened, becoming mist. The neon sign buzzed once more to life, flickering the word Open onto the wet pavement outside.

Jeeny: “Welch was right, you know. The real tragedy isn’t that people feel superior. It’s that they don’t see they’re standing on the same broken ground.”

Jack: “Yeah. Maybe the only thing worse than being poor is pretending you’re not.”

Jeeny: “Or pretending someone else’s poverty makes you rich.”

Host: They both sat in silence as the camera pulled back — two figures framed by old light and quiet truths, surrounded by a town that had forgotten how to listen.

The rain whispered softly against the glass, washing the dust from the windows, the earth, and — for a fleeting moment — from their hearts.

And as the scene faded, one truth remained in the air, trembling like the last echo of Welch’s words:
Superiority is the poorest disguise a soul can wear.