The second night in the tent isn’t much better than the first, just longer.

Around 8:30am I’m awakened not by a screaming alarm clock or the rumbling of the subway, but by temperature. Sunlight is filtering through the tent again, putting sweat on my face and a curse on my lips.

I roll over to see if I can continue sleeping, but shifting my body weight alerts me that bladder-wise, the needle’s on F. I sigh, grab my dry socks (I’m learning) and escape the tent like a stealthy fart.

Outside by the pond I stand in some bushes until the needle’s on E again, then I zip up and look around. Just like yesterday morning, the sun is shining, birds are singing, the pond is still and serene. No concrete, no throngs of commuters, no coffee cart guy. No tie around my neck, no Metrocard in my pocket, no god, damn, coffee, in, my, system.

I trudge up the hill, which suddenly seems three times the length. If I had money I would’ve brought Sherpas to carry me and offer cryptical but sage bits of homespun wisdom on the workings of the world and harmony with nature. In return I would show them how to brew a decent cup of joe and more importantly, to bring it to me every morning.

“Good morning,” someone says to me in the kitchen.

“Wherza coffee,” I almost mutter, but instead say something polite on my way to the percolator. Nearly everyone is already up and Lara’s making fritattas. Soon there’s a big-ass country breakfast spread all over the kitchen table, and I’m stuffing my face like I was raised in jail.

The training commences an hour after breakfast, but I sit out the first session because I’m totally wiped. I hadn’t been sleeping well all week and two nights in the tent isn’t something I’d recommend if I was my doctor. Then again, neither is smoking.

During the sparring sessions Jordan, the Wu Shu guy, observes something unfortunate about all of us hapkidoists; since we are barred from punching to the head in our dojang, we have all developed the terrible habit of leaving our heads wide open in our guard position.

I, in particular have developed a spectacularly nasty habit of leading with my head, a sure sign I’m gonna get my knot rocked in the street. Jordan drives the point home by peppering my forehead with taps during our bout. I’m thinking, in order to truly be prepared for beef I oughta wear a helmet around back in the city. Or fix my position.

“Okay I need everybody to gather at least three rocks for the sweat lodge,” says Lila, in the late afternoon. As a sample she holds up a rock approximately the size of my head.

Lara and I head into the undergrowth behind the house to find some, then we carry those heavy bitches all the way down the hill to the pond. I briefly contemplate making a “got my rocks off” joke but it doesn’t get past the censors.

(Humor-wise, I can’t score any hits with this crowd. Over dinner one of the girls remarked she had seen a movie starring Bill Murray in a dramatic role. “I can’t remember the title, but it was a movie based on one of W. Somerset Maugham’s novels,” she said.

“Yeah, I’ve read that one,” I said. “Caddyshack.” Not a giggle.)

During one of the breaks Jordan, Adam and I repair to the “treehouse” in the woods. I put “treehouse” in quotes because it’s literally bigger than my fucking apartment, comprised of two separate platforms joined by a bridge like that one in the end of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

You reach the treehouse by means of a fully retractable drawbridge on one end and a ladder on the other. I mean this treehouse should be featured in the next Lord of the Rings. I’m surprised there aren’t elves up in this bitch making cookies.

I later find out Lila’s husband owns a construction company, which is why the treehouse is so grand, and well-built. I’m told the drawbridge is to keep animals off of it at night.

Surprise, surprise. I am shocked to discover Jordan is, like me, a smoking martial artist. Up in the treehouse we trade tales of what idiots we are for doing it, then he shakes a couple menthols out of his pack and we have at it. Male bonding occasionally comes in strange forms.

As the sun sets, Jack gets a fire going down by the pond. All of the rocks are placed in the center of it, beneath the burning logs, and they’re left to cook for several hours.

So here’s the deal with the wooden dome. Lila throws a bunch of tarps over it, and now it’s a completely enclosed, tiny hut. After it gets completely dark out Jack digs the rocks out of the fire with a shovel, and they’re actually glowing red from the heat. Lila opens a flap in the hut and Jack dumps the rocks in a small pit in the center of it.

All of us strip down to bathings suits or good ol’ nakedness. The hut can only fit six, and the first group disappears into the hut with a jug of water from the pond. “It’s pretty intense in there,” Lila tells me. “Make sure you bring some water in with you to drink. You’re gonna sweat a hell of a lot. It’s a really good cleansing process.”

Five minutes later the first group wriggles out of the hut, dripping with sweat; the firelight makes them look shiny. I’m in the second group and now it’s our turn. I’m a little apprehensive but I figure I’ll just go in last, so I’m near the door if it’s unbearable and I need to duck out. You know, the whole occasional pussy thing.

“Hey, you guys mind if I go in last? I want to be near the door just in case,” says Jane. “I’ve done one of these before and I just wanna make sure I can get out if I need to.” Well, there goes that idea.

Lila disappears into the hut, followed by Miriam. The opening is tiny so I have to get down on my hands and knees. I take a deep breath and crawl into the flap.

I am instantly engulfed in pitch-blackness, and a torrent of searing heat hits me like a blast furnace. Holy fuck. Fucking intense is right.

“Be very careful!” I hear Lita’s voice warn from the far edge of the hut. “Make sure you stay well away from the rocks! Go left and move around the edge of the hut until you reach me,” she says.

Well, easier said than done--the hut is tiny inside and there’s about two feet between the fire pit and the wall of the hut. The air is practically burning my lungs. I try to stick to the wall of the hut but the tarp is coated in searing droplets of water that convert contact into flinching. The rocks in the pit announce their location by emanating the kind of burning heat they must have in Hell. I’m worried a stray limb will scrape the rocks and melt right off of my body.

Embarassed that I’m scared, I force myself to crawl along the inside of the hut until I reach Lila, and Tom comes in behind me. With glum desperation I realize I am the furthest from the flap, and a quick exit will be impossible--if I want to get out I will have to order a couple people to get out first. I try to stay calm and take deep breaths, though inhaling feels like doing shots of Stolichnaya through your nose.

Once all six of us are inside, I say “Holy fuck” a couple times and try to relax. I’ve been in steam baths and saunas before, but that’s pussy shit--this is the hottest I’ve ever been in my life.

“Okay, you guys ready for the steam?” says Lila. I can’t see anything in the pitch-blackness but I knew she was dumping the pitcher of water over the rocks, because all of a sudden came a loud hissing--followed by the scariest fucking sensation I’ve ever felt in my life:

A sudden, shocking blast of even more heat engulfed my body, and it suddenly felt as if I was on fucking fire. The nerve endings on every square inch of my skin, from the top of my head to the tip of my penis, told me my body had just burst into flames. I couldn’t believe I was still alive, that the human body could withstand something like this. If I had eaten a raw egg before I came in here, there’d be a fucking omelette in my stomach by now.

I concentrated on taking deep, deep breaths because--well, because what the fuck else could I do in there, write a fucking play? After a few moments Lila dumped some more water on the rocks and I felt my skin burn off a second time and I think my heart stopped for a little while. A couple minutes later we all crawled out of the hut.

It was kind of like being born again; you wriggle out of this thing and you’re covered in your own slime. Ectoplasm, whatever. I was totally shiny.

Lila and Jane jumped into the pond, and that seemed a sensible thing to do so I followed suit. I’m sure the water was icy but in my current state, I felt I was heating the entire pond just by being in it. I think if I dipped my penis in a pot of water I could bring it to a full rolling boil.

The sky was dark and cloudy that night so no stars, but I floated around on my back for a while, thinking profound and important thoughts (I can’t remember what they were) and staring at the darkened treeline.

After floating around for five minutes I thought about going into the hut again--sometimes when I’m scared to do something and then I try it, I want to do it more--but I felt kind of woozy and suspected I might pass out during the steam part. With my luck I’d fall face-forward onto the rocks, and no one would know what was happening in the darkness, and at my funeral the pallbearers would be like “Why is this coffin so light?” and another one would say “ ‘Cause Rain’s head and arms melted right off, it’s just a torso and some bird legs in there.”

That night Joe, one of the black belts, took my place in the tent so that I could get to sleep in an actual bed in the farmhouse. I thought sleep would come easy, but it didn’t. When I finally did fall unconscious, I woke myself up soon after with my own panicked yell; I was having a nightmare about a crazed homeless guy trying to slash me with a boxcutter and I couldn’t fend it off in time. The homeless guy, he was so quick.

I’m a little high-strung these days; I need to spend more time at the dojang.