And it works. Drubbing the splintered gnome with tiny blows, my wife heaves contentedly, stopping only when the shards have been pummeled to dust. A similar service, Cheung tells me, sprang up a number of years ago in Serbia, where it became something of a controversial phenomenon.
Were Cheung and his partners confident that a Serbian sensation would translate here? My wife now sufficiently pacified, it is my turn to enter the Rage Room. I sign a liability waiver so long it could be for Jurassic Park, and eagerly gear up. Fitted with thick gardening gloves and a paintball mask, and stepping awkwardly into white full-body polypropylene coveralls, I look like a very tall Oompa Loompa, as if instead of demolishing furniture I was about to sing a cautionary song. Singing is, in fact, a possibility.
I opt to begin with the basic package: 30 minutes alone with a weapon of my choosing and five ceramic dinner plates acquired from yard sales and thrift stores, lest one worry unduly about waste.
Free at last to satisfy my well-known animosity toward dishware, I find I am nevertheless unable to summon any deep reserves of anger. It helps that getting to the Battle Sports facility is a two-hour journey by subway and bus: the protracted travel ensures that one arrives already aggrieved and seething, wishing maximum violence on commuters who hog seats or wear oversized backpacks.
My hostile energies concentrated, I lay waste to the inanimate objects, tossing plates into the air and firing them off like dinnerware grand slams. I go with a sturdy wooden chair. Eyes fixed, jaw clenched, I raise the bat above my head, thinking angry thoughts, and with all the force I can muster I drop it like a sledgehammer. A chip the size of a thumbtack is loosed from the wood. The chair flops embarrassingly to the ground. Much to my surprise, I find myself, while thwacking away, in the throes of a genuine thrill: adrenaline has a way of taking over amid even simulated violence, which, despite no particular rage lingering in me, does feel rather therapeutic.
