With his vibrant smile, fresh-scrubbed appearance and articulate vocabulary, you'd never know there were a couple of gangster tattoos hidden beneath Gino Lucero's T-shirt. He covers them well, but he doesn't want to erase them. They're a grim but important reminder of the life he left behind.
One of the tattoos reads "El Wino" -- Gino's nickname when he roamed with the Varrio of Chosen Few gang on Salt Lake City's west side. Gino joined the gang when he was 13 and spent the rest of his youth selling drugs, fighting rival gangs and spray-painting neighborhoods.A survivor of a drive-by shooting, he became hooked on crack cocaine in his 20s and lived on a mattress in a friend's back yard, not caring whether he lived or died.
Today, at 32, he is determined that the same experience won't happen to his own children, Gina, 4, and Nicholas, 4 months.
"Being a father has changed my life," says Gino, who recently bought his first home with his wife, Nichole, in central Salt Lake City. "I want to set a good example and give my kids a lifestyle different from mine. I want to show them the value of a good education. That's something I never had growing up."
Gino shares this as he digs into a Free Lunch of steak and lobster at his favorite eating spot, the Market Street Broiler. There's a good reason it's his favorite place to dine: Gastronomy, the company that owns the restaurant, took a chance on Gino six years ago.
Hired as a demolition worker after becoming the first person in his family to receive a high school diploma, Gino is now a project manager for Gastronomy's building renovations.
"They saw some potential when a lot of people would have turned their backs on me," says Gino. "Looking back, it's amazing I made it as far as I did. A lot of the guys from my gang are in prison or dead now."
The fourth of 10 children, Gino grew up in a two-bedroom apartment in a rough neighborhood where the lure of joining a gang beckoned from every street corner. With his father in prison and his mother struggling to raise a family on welfare, nobody paid much attention when the seventh-grader joined one of the city's first gangs in 1980.
"The friendship and having a good time, that's what appealed to me," says Gino, who was beaten by other gang members as part of his initiation. "They whipped me pretty good," he says, "then I dusted myself off and I was in. I was one of the home boys."
He and the rest of the gang regularly went out looking for trouble, and they found plenty. Gino beat up anybody wearing rival gang colors, and he stabbed another teen in a fight over a girl. The boy got even by shooting Gino in the back one night, nearly killing him.
"The thought of dying didn't scare me," he says, "because I figured life would never get any better."
It wasn't until he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror one day after buying more cocaine that Gino realized he'd better make some changes. "I didn't want to end up in prison with my dad," he says, "and that's where I was heading."
A high school dropout, he always felt bad that he hadn't graduated from West High in 1985. So he signed up for classes at the Horizonte Center and finally received his high school diploma at age 25.
"Today, when I see kids who are in a gang, I just want to go up and tell them my story and stress the importance of staying in school," he says. "So many gangsters are not well-loved at home, and that's just so wrong. If there's one thing I know now, it's that nothing is more important than family."
Have a story? Let's hear it over lunch. E-mail your name, phone number and what's on your mind to freelunch@desnews.com or send a fax to 466-2851. You can also write me at the Deseret News, P.O. Box 1257, Salt Lake City, UT 84110.