When Susannah Caviness has an idea for a tattoo, she pulls out her phone and texts Mike Mehaffey.
She tells him about a vague idea (this time she wants a black crow with a crown on its head), and she waits for his response.
"Sounds good," the reply text says. "You gonna put that on one of your little arms?"
It's with that laid-back attitude and sense of familiarity that Mehaffey, who goes by "Little Mike" most of the time, runs his business. He recently opened a brand-new tattoo shop in Gainesville called Death or Glory Tattoo Parlour, 2224 NW Sixth St.
Little Mike, who isn't in any way a small guy, has been a locally based tattoo artist for a good while now. The timeline is sort of sketchy: Mehaffey, 34, had his first apprenticeship in Gainesville when he was about 18, but he only started "taking it seriously" and being a professional when he started Anthem Tattoo Parlor in 2006.
Anthem was Mehaffey's first attempt at being a professional tattoo artist. He had his share of bad luck after his apprenticeship went awry and decided to get back into the tattoo game after graduating from art school at UF. He started Anthem with a group of friends, building the shop from the ground up with lifelong friend Robert Barnes.
"It was a lot of work," Mehaffey said. "Rob and I built that place ourselves. It was good at first. We started Anthem with a set of ideals that we wanted to carry out - those ideals were going to make Anthem different from every other tattoo shop."
The project started phenomenally. In just a few short years, Anthem developed a reputation as one of the best tattoo shops in Gainesville. It was a place where someone could get tattooed by a friend instead of a stranger with a needle.
Personal disagreements between Mehaffey and Dave Kotinsley, the financial owner of Anthem, led Little Mike to split from the shop he helped build.
"I feel like towards the end, we lost sight of the ideals that we started the place with," Mehaffey said. "Anthem became just another tattoo shop, which is what we wanted to avoid all along."
Mehaffey left Anthem about six months ago, moving to an Ocala-based parlor called Crawling Panther. But while he was there, he primarily tattooed loyal Gainesville clients who would make the half-hour drive to Ocala.
"Stefan Meisse [owner of Crawling Panther] took me in and let me finish my appointments there. He was an amazing encouragement," Mehaffey said. "From every level of tattooing, he's an expert. He's the one who convinced me to stay in Gainesville and open a shop here."
Meisse reminded Mehaffey that his loyal clientele - whom Mehaffey considers family - were all based in Gainesville; moving to a new city where he didn't know anyone would be a bad move. According to Mehaffey, Death or Glory wouldn't have come about without Meisse's encouragement.
Mehaffey saved up money by "tattooing his ass off" at Crawling Panther, and he ended up investing almost everything he had into the new shop. He built it from the ground up, just like he did with Anthem, and recruited Barnes (who goes by "Ol' Dirty Rob") and Kimberly Wells to tattoo at the new place.
"When Mike told me he was opening a new shop, I told him I'd help in any way I could," Barnes said. "We built Anthem together - literally built everything inside that place - so I was going to help him out. Then he was like, ‘Well, do you want to work here?' And I thought about it and I said, ‘Well, why not?' It just made sense."
Barnes, 37, and Mehaffey have known each other for decades. The two worked at a pizza shop together and had been bouncers at Gainesville clubs since their teenage years. The chemistry they have together in the shop is what Mehaffey is hoping will keep Death or Glory around for a long time.
"Me and Rob have a real tight work environment," Mehaffey said. "There's no tension in the shop. That was the problem at Anthem: There was just too much tension. I didn't want to go to work."
Now, Mehaffey's new shop will be competing head-to-head with Anthem, a shop whose strong reputation he helped build. One thing Death or Glory is going to keep consistent, however, is how it treats its clients. Mehaffey stresses the "family" aspect of the shop more than anything else.
"I'd rather tattoo the same person 15 times at a very fair price than gouge them once and never see them again," Mehaffey said.
It's that approach that sets Death or Glory apart from other Gainesville tattoo shops like Body Tech, which mainly aim to take stabs at the college-aged crowd who want quick, cheap tattoos.
"[Body Tech] just lines them up. They don't want to draw, they don't want to do anything," Mehaffey said. "They want you to walk up to the wall, pick out 15C or whatever, then they take it from a filing cabinet, stick it on you and you have the same tattoo as 5,000 other people. It's not a good tattooing experience at all. It's really terrible; it's more like the Walmart [of the tattooing industry]."
Barnes agrees with Mehaffey on that front, saying he wants Anthem to be more than just a tattoo shop.
"We want to give people the best tattoo we can give them," he said. "Make them feel at home. Make them feel like if they want, they can come by and hang out."
Many appreciate the way Mehaffey runs his business, often turning into lifelong clients. Caviness, for example, has almost her entire right arm covered in Mehaffey's work.
"He's the only guy I go to," Caviness said. "All I do is get an idea and let him run with it. He's a great artist and can really take an idea and make it his own."
Mehaffey puts his style in the realm of "American traditional," but he has no problem meeting whatever style a client wants.
"It's really about trust," Caviness said. "I know whatever he does, it's going to turn out how I want."
The painstaking hours spent working on tattoos before a client walks in for an appointment are where Mehaffey earns his stripes. Putting that much effort into each and every tattoo makes him sure he's giving someone the best product possible.
"People wonder why you get home and you're so tired," Mehaffey said. "It's because you've been focusing so much, basically studying so hard for the whole day. It's like you just took the SATs all day but you're not allowed to make a mistake. It's a rewarding job, but it's not fun tattooing someone.
"It's nerve-racking if you're really serious about it."
That drive, his DIY ethic and the help of good friends like Barnes and Wells will give Death or Glory new life in Gainesville. The name even reveals a lot, as Mehaffey said this shop is his last chance to do something good. It's "do or die" time, one could say.
"The goal is to just have a good street shop where everyone can feel comfortable," Mehaffey said. "They know they're not going to get robbed, there's no hijinks and there's no bullshit. People just come in and get good tattoos for fair prices."
Mike Mehaffey, owner of Death or Glory Tattoo Parlour at 2224 NW Sixth St., looks on as coworker Robert Barnes tattoos a client (not pictured). The duo, who go by Little Mike and Ol' Dirty Rob, are two of the main tattoo artists at Death or Glory, which Mehaffey opened just a few weeks ago after leaving Anthem Tattoo Parlor earlier this year. Death or Glory hasn't had a grand opening yet, but Mehaffey said his goal is to run an "old-school street shop," where his loyal clientele is treated like family. Mehaffey's shop provides a more wholesome and welcoming alternative to quick, cheap tattoo shops such as Body Tech.
