You have several tattoo machines. Did you make them yourself?

When you’ve been tattooing as many years as me, you get to know people and the people want to help and they bring you stuff. There’s also a bunch of people here that already learned the mechanics about making machines, so they’re making their own.

What about an autoclave?

The autoclave you can’t get. If someone came to your place and sold you an autoclave that was stolen or broken in the hospital and they’re throwing it away and this guy got it, fixed it, and wanted to sell it to you, since they didn’t have any papers the police could show up at your place. You could end up spending three years in jail if you bought something that is stolen. The other thing is that you can’t get the parts. It’s not like the States where if something is damaged you might throw it away. Here we have to fix everything and often make our own parts in metal shops.

How many times have the police been here?

A couple of times, asking about me. But since I’ve been working with artists since ’96, making exhibitions and art expos—and I try to behave myself in the neighborhoods—I didn’t get in any trouble.

We haven’t seen a lot of people with tattoos here.

But a bunch of people have them! Police officers, people in the government, women, old men—everyone is getting tattooed right now. The people are changing mentally. It’s better than Spain. In Spain, when you’re walking through the streets the people look at you like you’re a gangster or from the mafia. It’s not like that here. It’s changing right now.

Was it like that at one point?

In the beginning, you’d get stopped on every corner. Police officers would see you and say, “You been in jail?” No, man. But now it’s changing. There are a couple of dinosaurs that didn’t evolve and those are the motherfuckers that give you a hard time. And actually, that’s the people in the government.

You’re tattooed, you skateboard, and you’re named Che. Do you get any adverse reactions from people just because of the name?

No, people actually like the guy. I don’t give a fuck about him because I really know what’s going on with those guys. I used to skate with his grandson. The guy is a punk. He would skate with us all the time. We’d get in trouble and they’d throw us in the police station for hours and he would get out like nothing. As soon as they find out, “Ah, you are this guy? Okay, you can go. But Che, you are gonna stay.”

You were recently in Barcelona.

Three months. I went to Barcelona for a tattoo convention. That’s the first time a tattoo artist from here could travel just for a convention.

Did you consider staying in Spain?

Yeah—I’ve been trying to get the papers done, but it’s hard. If you leave Cuba for three months and you don’t come back in that time, then you can never come back as a Cuban citizen. You can come back as a tourist but in three months they will kick you out of Cuba again. So you can’t stay here. And I have a daughter and my family here, my mother and my house. So I can’t leave it behind. I have a pretty good life for living in Cuba because I do whatever I fucking want.