"Magic Carpet Ride"
by Steppenwolf.
BY JENNY KLEIN
- - - -
I feel like such a pervert saying it: "Why don't you come with me, little girl, on a magic-carpet ride." But then, I am not a man nor am I old nor am I into that sort of thing. Hearing it, though, having Steppenwolf course through me, I am 16 and my feet fucking hurt from all the Lego pieces on the floor.
See, my first boyfriend was a meathead. I was 16, he was a late 18, but I was still three levels higher than him in math—and I detest math. I never argued that he wasn't a dumb pile of bricks, and really, if I have ever stood by anything in my life, if I have ever really felt conviction for something, it was for his stupidity. I'd think about what an idiot my boyfriend was, and then I would just look at him: he had a swimmer's body, the kind where you see him hunched over on the blocks, ready to spring, and you can count the notches on his spine, and when he glides into the water to emerge for the butterfly, he is like a gigantic fish flinging his body upward, and you can't help but notice the pelvic thrusts demanded by this type of stroke, and when he climbs out of the pool, he towers, and also, his Speedo clings. His nickname was King Kong Schlong, for obvious reasons, and so naturally at that age his brain wasn't of the greatest importance to me. In short, he was a senior and had biceps like grapefruits and he could flex his pectoral muscles in time to music or to the punchline of a joke.
He couldn't dance worth shit, though; he kind of hung his torso low, like King Louie in The Jungle Book when he jumps rope with his arms, and he bobbed his head and shifted his feet as if he were waiting for a bus and the goddamn thing wouldn't come and hit him and make him stop the dancing, because my friends were all looking at me with my hot boyfriend who was moving around our homecoming shebang like Coco the Gorilla's crack baby.
We danced then, and we danced in his little sister's bedroom, we danced while his parents sat downstairs in the living room eating KFC and watching Cops. He put the CD in—the one with the Pink Floyd and the Queen and the one random Backstreet Boys song, "Quit Playin' Games With My Heart" (it's good, he said, don't judge me)—he put it into the squatty pink Barbie boombox to "Magic Carpet Ride," he pulled me to him, and we danced slowly around the room with the faded purple plush carpeting and Rugrats posters on the walls.
Our feet destroyed many Lego people that night. We trampled entire villages, devastated elaborate dream mansions of the little things, yet it was wonderful, because I could feel his pecs against my cheek like two giant beating hearts.
He edged me toward his little sister's bed, her name was Sally, I think, or no, Suzy, and I fell back onto the stuffed animals, and it was there, with my head between the legs of Simba the Lion Prince, with this heaving brute between my own legs, that I lost my virginity, lost it thinking about the song and its reverberations, about how it saved me right then because it smoothed everything over, the pink of the room and the tiny yellow head stuck to my foot, thank you, thank you for the close your eyes girl, look inside girl, let the sound take you away ...
And away I went: hey, I wasn't banging for the first time on some kid Suzy's bed while surrounded by Disney characters and Polly Pockets. The words to the song weren't being overwrought by a distant "whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you, bad boys." It wasn't that at all.
No, my friends, I was fucking for the first time ever and this, this right here, panting and groping and probably wondering if this meant he wasn't going to get head anymore, this was King Kong Schlong.
It hurt like hell, let me tell you, but damn, was that a sweet, sweet tune.
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