2002-02-05 - 12:36 a.m.

So...

With seconds left on the clock and with the score tied 17-17, Adam Vinateri kicked the game winning field goal. The Patriots won, marking the first major championship won by a Boston sports team in 16 years.

Surreal. Boston fans are so used to losing, it's not even funny. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I know that I'm pretty championship starved.

The last Boston championship took place sixteen years ago. I was eight years old, and was over my forced-friend's house. Playing in his backyard, I somehow managed to drop my sneaker in rainwater filled hole in the backyard that was used for garbage collection in the olden days. One of my friend's disgruntled relatives had to fish it out for me, and missed part of the game. He made me put it back on.

All I remember of the victory was cigarette smoke, dog hair on the carpet, lots of yelling, tacky wallpaper, and a soaking wet left foot.

Then, the 1986 World Series. I will not discuss this. Bruins one or two round entries into Stanley cup playoffs. Good Sox teams that simply could not beat New York. I never really liked the Celtics anyway. '85 Pats v. Bears superbowl (considered the biggest blowout in Superbowl history), and the Pats v. Packers bowl from the 90's.

Then here come the Pats, underdogs the whole way, and with the good kind of drama, with no wacky issues like players being rape or murder suspects. They chose to be introduced at the Bowl as a team. Except for it not being the Sox, this win couldn't have been any more sweet.

So.

Vinateri kicks the field goal, the Pats win. I sucked down (perhaps) my fifteenth beer, watched the last few seconds of the game 'cause you never know, put on my coat, and left.

I didn't know what to expect.

Said Woooooo! about fifteen hundred times and high fived random people about half as many times. High fived hands protruding from passing cars. Lots of honking. Some cops.

I live right by the intersection of Harvard and Brighton avenues. These four corners have the advantage of being both busy and very attractive, and of being kinda isolated from the rest of the city. So, if something wacky like New Years goes down, everybody is gonna be buffooning it up at Harvard and Brighton.

Large groups started crossing the streets at will, with no concern for personal safety. A passing 66 bus became a plateau for one dude. With a little help, he managed to climb up the side. At the top, he did a little strip show and promptly jumped off.

Copycats scaled the very same bus, but no one really cared.

Celebrating fans started swarming in, and after awhile I noticed that the cops were closing off traffic, probably to prevent peopled cars from getting tipped over.

So, the cops were on our side, basically. They were gonna let the fire burn out on its own. I realized that things were going to get pretty wacky.

The novelty of standing in the middle of Harvard and Brighton, people milling about, was pretty wacky. Every now and then, I glanced down at the pavement and it was easy for me to imagine that I was really in the middle of a massive parking lot.

The sun hadn't yet set, and the sky was as blue as the background to this page. For awhile, when slapping five with passersby, I would shout Go RAMS! or Bledsoe Rules! or Go Steelers!. Sometimes, people would give me a concerned and good-natured look, on the verge of telling me that I shouldn't be all about the Rams, that the Pats manhandled the Steelers the previous week, or that Bledsoe did not in fact QB for the Superbowl. Sometimes, I'd get a look halfway between an eye roll and the I'm a little too preoccupied to kick your ass right now face. But every time, we share a we're on the inside of the same joke look.

I also tried, Who won?, but that didn't go over well.

As the sky darkened, the crowd got rowdier. There were about 700 people screaming and slapping five. Some dude uprooted a public trashcan and set it on fire. Others started kicking it around.

I couldn't believe that, through their inaction, the cops were condoning our behavior!

Before I knew it, there was a legitimate bonfire blazing. Some people, myself included, crowded around it, watching. Lots and lots of pushing, but not really aggressive. So much noise. Cinders rising in the air, newspaper mostly.

I was a little nervous, but the two iced-cappuccinos, the fifteen beers, the sense of immediacy, and the never-used victory adrenaline helped a little. People started lighting off roman candles. I didn't really want to get hit in the chest or face with a flaming missile, so I kept in the second ring of the circle, remaining in the midst of the action, but semi-protected by a front-line human shield.

Naturally, the braver members of the crowd starting dancing in the fire. Lots of chants. U-S-A! U-S-A! I unabashedly participated, completely aware that I was proudly and defiantly proclaiming my United States citizenship within the safe confines of an unruly crowd comprised entirely of Americans. Every now and then, I'd add Can-a-DA! Can-a-DA!

My favorites were a couple of short lived Yan-kees-SUCK! Yan-kees-SUCK!

The bonfires got bigger and suddenly there were two going. I saw people coming out of Store 24 with lighter fluid. The free newspaper kiosks were raided for their content, which burned well.

The only speck of violence was a belligerent dude, who clearly wanted to get into a fight (maybe he placed a sure-thing bet against the Pats, maybe he was just an asshole). His buddies kept trying to control him, but he would not relent. After he threatened some dude, an unknown threw a flaming chunk of newspaper in his face. He just batted it down, said his obligatory fuck you and scampered away.

Otherwise, utter anarchy, but the good kind.

It became kind of fashionable to jump over/dance through the fire. By this time, the giving-tree newspaper kiosks themselves became ceremonious timber. As some dude body-slammed a pink, plastic Weekly Dig kiosk into the fire, much to the delight of the crowd, I thought of H., who used to write smokin' articles for the tiny paper. Lots of Allston hipsters have beefs with Joe Bonni (sp?), the editor of the paper, or with the paper itself.

Watching the kiosks burn, I also bemusedly felt a little bad, imagining some dude in a band who just printed up 500 stickers and just that morning plastered the kiosks, unsuspecting.

After watching a few folks dart through the flames, and after doing some mental math (about %5 caught fire, none too serious), I weighed my options. I counted myself lucky to be there. At the same time, I wasn't really bringing anything to the table. Like a guest at an orgy who keeps his clothes on the whole time, masturbating before and afterward.

So I jumped through the fire.

It was a good jump, right through the middle like a man, not over the outer edge like a pussy. I checked thoroughly and inconspicuously. I was not on fire. I told the dude to my right that it was a little more warm on his side, and got a chuckle in return.

I was here.

Smashing bottles, lots of cameras, both video and conventional. I briefly considered going home to get a beer or two and my camera, but decided that it might be a bad idea. I later learned that there was a no-entry net around the area. If I had gone back home, I wouldn't have been able to get back into the party zone.

The whole time, I kept surprising myself with my willingness to be a part of the idiot crowd and to even push ahead to the front. But idiot rave parties are boring and stupid. This was a well-needed act of spontaneous celebration, but with a reason behind it. I may never get to see something like this again.

Things were dying down a little. We had done all that we needed to do. There were no more harmless and convenient things to destroy. People had shot off all their fireworks. I pushed to the front of my bonfire and ceremoniously burned all of my ATM receipts. For me.

Fire is weird. I'm not used to it. Never had a fireplace, and I'm most certainly not some granola eating dirt-hippie camper. It was a cold weekend, and I enjoyed feeling my flesh cook as if under a heat lamp. Like many others, I was mesmerized by the fire, by watching sheets of plastic drip to the ground. It stank. I inhaled enough plastic to manufacture a G.I. Joe action figure in my lungs.

The fire itself was entertaining enough to warrant its own memory.

Some long-haired dude in a plate-armor embossed leather jacket stoked the crowd a little and then jumped over the bonfire to uproarious and loving applause. Showman.

To the crowd's credit, nobody (that I know of) got hurt. Smashed bottles are plentiful and tolerated in my rent-a-neighborhood. The only things that got burned were some newspapers that probably would have gotten tossed around the street by drunken idiots anyway, and the kiosks that housed them. Store 24 made some money on lighter fluid. And people really did leave when the cops decided to break up the party.

The fact that they came full force and in riot gear kind of helped.

But that's cool. The cops, to their credit, tolerated a celebration. They let the flames die on their own rather then fanning them. I got the sense that they wanted to be celebrating with us.

The riot gear cops pushed us all far back and strongly encouraged our dispersal. Many obliged. The fire trucks came to put out our bonfires. I told one of the cops that I lived right here and pointed to my apartment, and could I peacefully watch the fire trucks. He told me where to stand.

Globe Staff Photo / Justine Ellement