Page 4 of Never Your Valentine

I get there first, standing between him and the rack. “Did you bring a playlist with you?”

“I thought you provided that.” This is from Tim, who booked the room and is nominally in charge. The other guys told me their names, but I don’t remember any of them. I can get them off their liability waivers if I have to.

“We’ve got three playlists to choose from,” I tell them. “Would you gentlemen prefer angry, angrier, or full animal?”

“Full animal!” they shout in unison. No surprise there. We only have one playlist, but the tourists don’t have to know that.

Beefy drums his fists on his chest. “Let’s goooo!” He draws out the word to an absurd degree.

“The shit in here doesn’t stand a chance.” This is from a short guy with an earring.

“Smithereens,” a guy with glasses says.

“Dibs on the printer,” Beefy snarls.

“Not if I get there first.” Tim is trying to shoulder Earring out of the way. Earring shoves back.

Glasses and Beefy rush to the weapons rack and pick up crowbars.

I throw up surrender hands. “Whoa, whoa, guys. You can see I’m not dressed for this. No helmet. No faceplate. I’m going to need you to slow your roll.”

“Just getting ready,” Beefy says.

Glasses smacks his crowbar on his palm. “What are we waiting for?”

Earring and Tim have sledgehammers and are swinging them in practice arcs. The scent in the air is the acrid tone of nervous sweat overlaid with some kind of battle pheromone. It’s setting my teeth on edge.

“Let’s fuck some shit up!” Tim yells.

This is met with a primal howl from Beefy and a “Fuck yes!” from Glasses.

Great. We’re at the f-bomb stage already. I run a rage room. I’m not concerned about swearing, but the frequency and style of cursing tells me a lot. These guys are trying to pump themselves and each other up. It’s the kind of male pack behavior that turns dangerous if it’s not controlled.

I used to let this kind of excessive testosterone go unchecked, but over the years, I’ve learned how to diffuse it, or at least how to channel it. People come to The Break to smash things, which requires a certain amount of adrenaline and righteous anger, but that anger needs somewhere to go.

General unhappiness at the state of the world? No. There’s too much. Ten minutes of evening news will give you a year’s worth of rage. But it’s the kind of helpless rage that you can’t do anything about, so destroying objects tends to make it worse, not better. Then there’s rage at the “unfairness” of life, which always spirals into rage at women or minorities or gay kids. That kind of toxic punching down has to be nipped in the bud.

We need something specific. Something that will bond the group, but won’t spill out of this room. These guys need to vent their anger completely and thoroughly, so they can leave calm and happy while the staff cleans up the mess.

I catch Tim’s eye and tilt my head, then move off to one side. Tim follows. He removes his helmet to talk to me.

“I’d love to set the tone for you guys, to give you the best rage experience.”

“Yeah, man. Let’s do it.”

“You all work together, right?” I already know that, but getting him to agree on small points will make it easier for him to agree on bigger ones.

“We work for Solduxe,” Tim says. “You ever work at a startup?”

“I started this business,” I say, gesturing at the plywood walls, the cement floors, and the fluorescent lights covered in protective cages.

Tim scoffs. “Not even remotely the same.”

“Wow,” I say, pretending to be impressed. “I guess there’s a lot I don’t understand about what you do.”

“Hardly anyone does,” Beefy says. They’re all listening now. Good.

“I bet even your boss doesn’t understand what you do,” I say. “He thinks he can just sign the checks and…” I spread my hands, letting them fill in the rest.