CALIFORNIA'S OLDEST INMATE
By J. Michael Kennedy, Times Staff WriterApril 10, 2007
The following profile has been edited down from a longer essay that partly focuses on the California parole system. By editing it, I turned it, I put the focus on the man rather than the social issues of the prison system. So students who refer to the original essay can see how editing can "revise" an essay, that is, see it from a different point of view:
At 94, John Rodriguez has the dubious distinction of being the oldest inmate in the California prison system.
Focus is quickly established through the means of Definition: placing John Rodriguez in the class of 1) old men, 2) prisoners. Then the writer moves to a lower level of generality, followed by an antithesis based on cause-effect (because he's a murderer he's not sympathetic):
He looks the part, with his snow-white hair and unsteady gait. But given the crime that put him in prison, he's hardly a sympathetic character.
A yet lower level of generality, giving details of the murder, using cause-effect to do so, with some indirect quotation ("he claimed").
Rodriguez murdered his wife during a drunken rage on a December day in 1981. He claimed she'd been cheating on him. For that, he stabbed her 26 times with a paring knife. His punishment was a sentence of 16 years to life, and he's spent most of it at the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo.
The next means ("commonplace") is Division, dividing up Rodriquez's current life: he uses a walker, is hard of hearing, has arthritis, is forgetful, has taken hard falls, and lives in the prison hospital. Lower levels of generality are shown by underline.
Rodriguez uses a walker and is hard of hearing. He has arthritis and is often forgetful. He's taken some hard falls over the years, breaking his arms and severely bruising himself. He's lived in the prison hospital for two years, sleeping in a dormitory setting rather than a cell.
Personal description follows:
He's become a fixture around the low-security hospital, where his normal daytime attire is pajama bottoms and a blue prison shirt. Part of his routine is a Sunday visit to the Indian sweat lodge on the prison grounds.
Cause effect ("remorse," "jealousy"):
Rodriguez says he has remorse over the murder, that he was insane with jealousy because his much younger wife had taken up with a man closer to her age.
Dialogue goes to lower levels of generality from the previous paragraph, typical of quoted speech in profiles:
"I just want to get out and be left alone," he said. "I'm sorry for what happened and I shouldn't have done it."
The key word, "murder," continues coherence, by linking past paragraphs to the next:
No one, including Rodriguez, tries to downplay the murder that sent him to prison.
Lower level of generality: from Rodriguez to his murder. The next paragraphs are called "narration" (of time) rather than "description" (of place, people, or things). Note strong verbs: "recounted" (not "told"); "consumed" (not "drank").
As Rodriguez recounted to police, he began drinking early that morning in 1981 and, by about 5 p.m., had consumed an estimated 18 beers.
He then went to Trejo's home and struck her when she opened the door. He began stabbing her with a paring knife, chasing her from room to room as she tried to escape. After he killed her, Rodriguez walked to his own home, where he was waiting when police arrived to arrest him. He was 68 at the time.
Common in profiles, narration is not chronological, but shifts back and forth from present to past. Note however that sometimes chronology must be strict, as in the narration of the murder, which was narrated step by step ("He then went to Trejo's home" and "After he killed her," etc.).
During his working life, Rodriguez was a cook, an interpreter and a delivery driver. He now spends much of his day lying in a prison hospital bed, though he takes pride in the fact that he still has some vigor left.
The previous paragraph links past and present by antithesis ("He now spends," etc.). The profile ends with quoted speech. Journalistic writing commonly uses "weak" endings rather than strong endings as in classical writing. This is typical of a "slice-of-life" look at people, probably influenced by the news media as well as the cinema of realism. In other words, there are no "neat" endings. One feels this profile might have ended in any number of ways. The writer chose an up-close look at the thinking of an aged murderer who still takes pride in something even if he's in prison.
"I don't look like I'm old," he said. "There's a 70-year-old man here who looks older than me."
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