You gotta like who you’re dealing with; you’re stuck together sometimes for hours.”

Carrie Thombs, who's been a customer of Inflicting Ink for nearly 30 years

PORTSMOUTH — Jeff Goyette still remembers the story of the bald guy, the big eyeballs, and the 30-pack of beer.

“I worked on this guy’s head,” the owner of Inflicting Ink tattoo studio recalled while working on a customer at his Chase Road business Saturday. “He shaved his head, and I did his whole top of his head with this weird horror, sci-fi type of thing with big eyeballs. He gave me a picture of what he wanted.”

The session was a long one — about five hours. As soon as it ended his customer crossed the street to a liquor store, picked up a 30-pack of Budweiser and started downing it all outside the shop.

“That whole 30-pack was gone in about 10 minutes,” Goyette said. “He shot every single one of them. I said, ‘Dude, what are you doing? You’re gonna end up in an ambulance.’”

Goyette was able to get the customer home safely, and called to check on him the following day. “He had a headache, and I said, ‘You know what that’s from?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, that damn 30-pack.’ I meet a lot of characters.”

For the record, the 63-year-old Goyette doesn’t recommend getting drunk before or after a tattoo session. If you come in wasted, he said, you’ll have to make another appointment.

The popular tattoo shop is celebrating 30 years of inking people from all walks of life. One of them is Carrie Thombs, a 47-year-old mother and former tanning salon owner who’s been in and out of punk and heavy metal bands —Psycho Dolls and Grenade Vendetta among them — since she was 14. She now works in a dentist’s office in Newport.

Thombs recalls eyeing the first Inflicting Ink studio at 2968 East Main Road when she was still underage. As soon as she turned 18 — the age requirement in Rhode Island, whether you have parental consent or not — she rushed to the shop to get inked for the first time.

“I got a skull on my right thigh that Jeff did in 1996, and it just goes on from there,” she said while receiving a “coverup” — a new tattoo design inked over an existing one — from Goyette. “I got them behind my ears, both shoulders, between the shoulders, above the butt — a tramp stamp. Not that I’m a tramp; I’m a good girl!”

She’s never been anywhere else. “This is my guy,” she said of Goyette. “You gotta like who you’re dealing with; you’re stuck together sometimes for hours. We like the same things, and sometimes you just click with people. I almost feel like we’re from the same tree.”

Victor Alvarez is another loyal customer. The Baltimore native who now lives in Bristol received his first of many tattoos from Goyette 30 years ago.

“Since then he has become a friend,” Alvarez said. “I’ve gone to other shops for work and the one thing I’ve noticed is that the best artists are modest, patient, and good listeners. I trust the folks at Inflicting Ink with my flesh, which is a big deal. People like to say it’s important you have a mechanic you can trust. I would humbly submit that a shoddy car repair is way easier to fix than a busted tattoo.”

All in the family

Of course, they can indeed “fix” a tattoo — or get rid of one altogether. Inflicting Ink, in fact, is the only studio in Rhode Island that offers tattoo removal services, according to Goyette. That procedure is handled by his youngest son, Cameron, who’s certified to operate the laser removal machine. (Goyette’s oldest son, Cory, started tattooing at 11. Now 34 with his own business in Fall River, he’s returning to work in his dad’s studio this weekend.)

Not surprisingly, names of spouses or romantic partners are the most common tattoos that are either removed or modified. Johnny Depp famously had a "Winona Forever" tattoo, signifying his love for fellow actor Winona Ryder, changed to “Wino Forever.”

A good tattoo artist also serves as sort of a counselor to customers who may not be thinking things through — such as wanting a face tattoo like Mike Tyson has. “You may want it now, but you’re gonna regret it later,” Goyette said.

Sometimes they flat out say no.

“One guy came in and he brought his wife or girlfriend, but he wanted me to put his handprint over her breast,” Goyette said. “And I said, ‘I’m not doing that.’ There’s some weird stuff where I draw the line, like if it’s a private area or something stupid. There are (artists) out there who do that, but it’s not my gig.”

Becky Nadeau, Inflicting Ink’s manager for the past 18 years — she found the place after a different studio reneged on an appointment to get her first tattoo — recalled the 18-year-old who wanted to get her boyfriend’s name across her neck. 

“He wanted her to do it, and I said no. It’s the mom in me. Once you tattoo your throat or your hands and you leave here, your life is not the same. It’s automatic judgment,” said Nadeau, who’s received “over 100 tattoos” from Inflicting Ink.

‘I have $300’

Most unusual tattoos aren’t rejected, but the thought of them still have their creators chuckling years later. Stephanie Winters, an artist who’s been with the business since 2008, shakes her head while recalling one of her first clients. “He was like, ‘I have $300 and I want a tattoo that says I spent your money on a tattoo in Rhode Island bitch’ right down his arm,” she said.

Winters loves her job. “You get a new project all the time. I have a little bit of ADHD, and it’s nice to meet somebody, talk about their idea, get really excited about that, do that, move on to the next thing. It’s cool to see where different people come from with their ideas. Some people are just straight up ornamental, and others are like, ‘This has deep, deep meaning for me’ and you get their whole story and everything,” she said.

A big misconception about tattoo artists is that they’re intimidating and perhaps even a little scary, she said. “Most of us are nerds,” said Winters, who’s into Harry Potter and Star Wars. Designs based on those franchises as well as other TV shows and movies are all over her booth. They serve as good distractions and conversation-starters while people are getting “stabbed,” she said. “It just makes it a better overall experience.”

Getting his start

Goyette, originally from Massachusetts, got his start in the industry after meeting a world-famous tattoo artist named Cap Szumski in the late ’80s. Goyette owned a sign company at the time and showed his portfolio to Szumski, who hired him on the spot. “So I made all these neon signs for this new shop he was building in Atlanta, Georgia,” he said.

After driving out there with the signs, one thing led to another and Goyette ended up apprenticing under Szumski for nearly three years. He then went out on his own, appearing at conventions around the country, before returning to the Northeast. Since tattooing was illegal in Massachusetts at the time, he came to Rhode Island and set up his first studio in Portsmouth. For six or seven years at the tiny shop, it was just him and his old Freetown buddy Dave Foster, who’s still with him. “We just built the business up from there,” he said.

Goyette also built what he described as the world’s largest mobile tattoo truck. In one week in Tennessee, his crew created 120 tattoos. “The Travel Channel was going to do a reality show on it, but something got in the way. My wife passed away five years ago from cancer and that had a lot to do with it, too. She got sick and it kind of fell by the wayside,” said Goyette, who later sold the truck.

He moved to the current location on Chase Road — the former East Bay Medical Center — in 2020. He bought the building because he wanted each artist to have their own booth. Some of the late Dr. David Johnson’s young patients who were treated in the building are now coming to Inflicting Ink for tattoos, he said.

Bad timing

It was an exciting move with a rocky start. “I looked at this building in January, closed on Feb. 11, and then on March 9th the board of health shut all of us down for COVID,” he said.

Even though the business was closed for nine months, Goyette managed to continue paying his eight employees out of his own pocket while he worked on improving the building. “I was panicking because every penny I saved went into the building. Thank God we were able to open it back up.”

Things are great now, though. Goyette has even pushed off retirement since he loves his work and crew so much.

“It’s been good to me. I’ve made a good living, a good life. I meet people and like talking to people. To last 30 years in this industry, you have to be doing something right.”

Inflicting Ink is located at 161 Chase Road. For more information about tattoos, tattoo removals, or piercings, call 401/683-5680. You can also find the business on Facebook and Instagram.