The Hot Steps

BY HAYLEY KATZEN, EWINGAR BRIGADE

On an autumn evening in 2017, our crew took our places on the Ewingar community hall’s low wooden stage. A motley chorus line of seven members of the NSW RFS Ewingar Brigade. Richard, our Captain, insisted he couldn’t and didn’t dance. Paul, the Senior Deputy Captain, picked up the steps quicker than anyone. My partner Jen groaned and said, “No! I haven’t got the first bit yet”.

Nadine, initiator and choreographer, laughed. Recently moved to the area, she’d joined the brigade and we, the Hot Steps, were now to perform ‘YMCA’ at her 40th birthday party. I appreciated having another woman and a novice out on the fire line.

Jen and I had joined back in 2003 in the wake of the 2002 fires that had destroyed Jen’s mudbrick home and all she’d built over 21 years. Back then, five years into our relationship, I still lived in town and Jen on the farm. I barely knew the names of the women or men in this small community. To me, the men were simply the ‘big beards’.

Hayley (centre) with Paul Botting and Nadine Myers, members of the Ewingar Brigade

Photo courtesy of Hayley Katzen

Slowly, very slowly, after our Basic Training, Jen and I became more involved with the brigade. The blokes eventually acknowledged Jen was an asset – years of farm work had made her strong, and she’d always been practical. In contrast I, an academic cityslicker, feel a little silly even describing myself as a firefighter.

But a decade ago, when the brigade was still a boys’ club, they elected me President. This role has become my one opportunity to use my facilitation and administrative skills to contribute to the community.

Over these last seventeen years, the brigade has gradually changed. It’s no longer a boys’ club: the old guard has retired from active duties, their bodies wearied and aching after years of manual work. A reluctant Jen wears the stripes of a Deputy Captain and we have ten women as members.

When a new bloke moves to the area – particularly if they’re under 50 – I quickly ask, “and what about your partner? Tell her to come. It’s a good group – there’s a job for everyone and good info to handle the fire season.” I don’t tell them how slogging it out together on the fire line engenders a respectful relationship which facilitates conversations and honesties we’d formerly have thought impossible.

The YMCA rehearsals were a precious moment in time – but one that would seal us together as a crew. We laughed, danced, sweated and urged each other on. Nadine would suggest a new step. Karen, who drives the Cat 2, would say, “I don’t know if I’ll remember all this.” Boris would smile. I’d shake the day’s thinking out of my shoulders as the cogs in my brain cranked noisily with the sequence of steps. As the weeks wore on, I learned more about the others, their hopes and longings and safety zones.

The Ewingar Brigade following the 2019/20 fires

Photo by Catherine Marciniak

After years of feeling alone in this predominantly heterosexual community with a high percentage of single men, I began to be myself more – show myself. Oddly, fifteen years since that 2002 fire when I first began to know this community, I sniffed a feeling of belonging.

“OK,” said Nadine. “Let’s go again – how about we throw in some thrusts?”

“Like this,” said Paul, moving his hips double time, his goatee bobbing fast. “

Jeez, I’ll have to practice that one,” I said.

“What a queer line up we are,” said Jen as we assembled on the stage. “Heterosexuals and dykes all playing gay men.”

Hayley Katzen is a South African-born lawyer who moved to her girlfriend’s cattle farm in the Australian bush where she joined the NSW RFS in 2003. Her writing has won competitions, been read on ABC radio and been published in Australian, American and Asian journals and anthologies. Her debut memoir, Untethered, is out now.