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At the front door of a modest bungalow in the Richmond flatlands, a robust young man greets me warmly. His name is Jesse Graham, and his mother, local author and resident Meredith Maran, has recently published a non-fiction book entitled Dirty, A Search for Answers Inside America’s Teenage Drug Epidemic. In Dirty, Maran follows the daily struggles of three teenage drug users as they navigate through high school, the juvenile justice system, and various recovery programs. Interspersed throughout the book are glimpses of Jesse’s own turbulent teen years and Maran’s fight to keep her son safe, in school and out of jail. 

Jesse guides me to a comfortable couch in a living room that is, I note, remarkably well kept for a young bachelor. 

I ask Jesse about his difficult high school years. “I didn’t have an extreme addiction,” says Jesse, “but I was addicted to weed and alcohol. I started partying at 13, got in trouble with the police often (Maran notes in her book that Jesse was arrested nineteen times for inc reasingly violent crimes between the ages of 13 and 20). I finally reached a turning point in 1996 when I was a sophomore at Berkeley High School. I loved basketball and my coach invited the team members to come with him to his church, Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist on Eighth Street in Berkeley. At first, I had to get used to it. It was a long time for me to sit still and I didn’t have much of an attention span. But about the third visit something clicked. I didn’t stop using right away. I continued to go to Berkeley High for a while, then I transferred to Oakland Tech, and I finally got a diploma through an independent study program. It took me five years to get outta high school. I was 19 when I finally gave up drugs for good.” 

One of the issues that Mara n explores painstakingly in Dirty is her relationship with her children. Besides Jesse, there is Peter, a photographer and 2003 graduate of UC, Berkeley. Maran wonders why Peter glided easily through adolescence, doing well at school and at home while Jes se, only 18 months Peter’s junior, “…rarely went a week without a heart stopping drama. Sleepless nights blurred into bad-news days; brief interludes of ‘normal life’ were shattered by phone calls summoning me and my ex-husband to principal’s offices, pol ice stations, emergency rooms, jails.”  

I ask Jesse what he thinks fueled his drug and alcohol use. “I was three when my parents split,” says Jesse. “It caused a lot of pain. When I got older, I started hanging out with the wrong people. I felt like I wa s losing a wrestling match with my emotions and I repeatedly made bad decisions.”  

I look at Jesse’s arms and legs. They are covered in tattoos. “Tell me about those,” I say, pointing to his calves and shoulders. 

He laughs. “This one is of a panther,” h e says. “I got it when I was 16. And this one is of a hand holding a cross and two crying eyes are looking through it. It reads ‘So Many Tears.’ This one over here is of an angel and the devil.” 

“Wow,” I say. “You got these after you cleaned up, uh?” 

“N o,” says Jesse. “I drew all of these myself and got them before I stopped using and found the church.” 

Now a sophomore studying sociology at Diablo Community College, Jesse hopes to make a difference in other people’s lives by working in a non-profit, co mmunity setting. And he already has. He was employed for two and half years as a child caseworker at Walden House, a court mandated, residential adolescent drug treatment program in San Francisco. “I was successful there,” says Jesse, “because I’m young a nd I’ve been where the clients have been.” 

“What about the kids your mom follows in Dirty? What do you think of their chances for success?” 

Jesse pauses for a moment. “I think it will be predicated by their family situation and social environment. It al l depends on what they come back home to. I was lucky. I had a mom and dad who stayed with me throughout my problems. I had their friends, my brother and my basketball coach. And now I’ve got my faith, my own community, my church.” 

“What advice do you ha ve for the kids and their parents who are going through what you and your family went through?” 

“I’d tell kids to recognize their own value. The value that you put on yourself dictates how you treat other people. The kids in my mother’s book don’t have the worst of parents but they and everyone else need to learn how precious they are. My advice to parents is to have a support system for themselves so that they can get help. My mother would be a good person to go to for advice because she’s already been through it. In part, that’s what her book is all about.” 

I look around the room trying to think if there is anything else I should ask Jesse before I leave. My eyes settle on a bubbling fish tank. “Hey,” I say. “Why don’t you have any fish in that tank?” 

Jesse smiles. “It takes a lot of work to take care of fish. You have to get the water and the temperature just right. They need just the right environment and attention to grow healthy and strong.” 

“Amen,” I say.  

“You got that right,” answers Jesse. 

Dirty, A Search for Answers Inside America’s Teenage Drug Epidemic, published by HarperSanFrancisco ($24.95, 320 pages) is available at local bookstores. For more information, visit www.meredithmaran.com. 

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