Gene Dinwoodie

Gene Dinwoodie is one of the larger, older boys who torment Lenora Laferty and attack Arvin Russell when he tries to protect her. His progression from public bully to isolated victim makes him a central example of the schoolyard violence that Arvin answers with calculated force—and of the fear that leads Gene to soften his accusation afterward.

Identity and Background

Gene is a senior who, like Orville Buckman and Tommy Matson, has been held back a year or two. All three are bigger than Arvin. They spend much of their time in the school’s shop building, trading dirty jokes with the industrial arts teacher and smoking Bugler. The account presents Gene as part of a group whose size and seniority help make its abuse seem ordinary until Arvin confronts it.

Gene’s home life complicates his position without excusing his conduct. His father, Carl Dinwoodie, watches him in the hospital with bloodshot eyes. Gene can smell the Wild Irish Rose from across the room; he knows his father can be dangerous when drinking wine, though not as bad when he sticks to beer. Gene also knows that his mother attends the same church as the Russell family. He fears his father would beat him if he learned that Gene had been harassing Lenora. His family’s connection to the church therefore gives his misconduct a possible route back to his household, while his father’s drinking makes that exposure frightening to him.

Harassment and Arvin’s Intervention

One day after school, Arvin finds Lenora backed against the trash incinerator beside the bus garage, surrounded by Gene and the other two boys. Gene insults her appearance in explicitly sexual terms. Orville and Tommy laugh and move closer; Lenora shuts her eyes and prays as tears run down her face. Arvin comes up behind the boys and attacks Gene, managing only a couple of blows before the others bring him to the ground and punch him in turn. The janitor’s arrival with boxes to burn interrupts the beating. Arvin is left with a headache that lasts a week and difficulty reading the blackboard for several more.

Gene makes the conflict public again the next Monday, approaching Arvin in the cafeteria and challenging him to put a sack over his head. Arvin is seated with Mary Jane Turner, a new student he likes, and Gene uses her presence to threaten him further. He says he might take Mary Jane for a ride after dealing with Arvin, then insults Lenora again. The threat makes clear that Gene’s hostility is not limited to the earlier encounter: he is willing to bring both girls into his taunt to provoke Arvin into fighting.

Arvin does not leap up. Instead, he closes his eyes and joins his hands in prayer. Gene is taken aback, then warns him that praying will not save him. The crowded lunchroom and the gym teacher’s presence shape the encounter: the teacher is a formidable wrestler whom even Gene fears. Arvin later tells Earskell Russell that he really was praying, but for the right time. The contrast is important: Gene reads the gesture as baffling weakness, while Arvin describes it as restraint and preparation.

Retaliation and the Hospital Accusation

Arvin waits, then catches each of the three boys alone over a period of nearly two months. He attacks Orville on the road after watching him leave Banner’s store with a drink and a snack; a blow to the bottom of Orville’s Pepsi bottle drives the glass neck into his mouth, and Arvin leaves him unconscious in a ditch with a paper sack over his head. Gene is attacked later, in his father’s garage, while changing a spark plug in his 1956 Chevrolet. By then Arvin has collected a dozen paper bags. Gene is found hours afterward with his head tightly encased in them and is lucky, according to the doctor, not to have suffocated.

The injuries extend beyond what can be seen. During his twelve hours in the hospital, Gene believes he is racing at the Indianapolis 500: each time he stomps the accelerator, his car slows, while engines roar past him. He describes it as the longest night of his life. The account gives this delirium as part of the attack’s aftermath, making the assault persist for Gene as a frightening experience even after he has been found.

When the sheriff asks who attacked him, Gene names Arvin Russell. The sheriff doubts the identification, noting that Arvin likes to fight but is half Gene’s size. Gene says he was caught off guard. Asked whether he saw Arvin before being struck, however, Gene says no. He insists that Arvin was responsible, but when pressed to explain how he knows, he backs away: he could be wrong. The retreat follows his awareness of his father’s presence and his fear that the harassment of Lenora will be disclosed. The episode leaves Gene’s accusation both specific and compromised: he names Arvin, but acknowledges that he did not see his attacker.

Character and Narrative Role

Gene’s encounters with Arvin turn the insult about a paper sack into a recurring instrument of retaliation. First the phrase is part of Gene’s humiliation of Lenora; then Gene uses it to taunt Arvin; finally Arvin leaves Gene nearly suffocated beneath bags. The repetition links the boys’ violence without making their positions identical: Gene joins a group assault on a smaller boy, while Arvin later chooses moments when each aggressor is alone and acts after waiting for what he calls the right time.

Gene’s account also shows the limits of the authority brought to the case. The sheriff questions his identification rather than accepting it without doubt, but Gene’s fear of his father shapes what he is willing to say about the circumstances surrounding the attack. Later, when Earskell asks Arvin what happened, Arvin explains that Gene and his companions had been teasing Lenora and that he had dealt with all of them. Gene thus remains one member of a three-boy episode whose consequences extend beyond the initial beating: his conduct prompts Arvin’s delayed violence, and his fear helps conceal the reason the conflict began.