Rasputin Magnetism

By Jessica Lake

My father had a Rasputin magnetism.

I never understood how he gathered his young acolytes. He had his Zen persona, his impervious optimism, and an outsized confidence in himself. Whatever it was, he convinced many that he was “Ed the Wise and Powerful.”

You’d think I would have known him better as his second son. Sadly, he never found much time for any of his children.

But I saw him as he saw himself.

His indifference denied me his approval. Naturally, no personal sacrifice felt too great if it might earn it.

In hindsight, what embarrasses me is how long I idolized him. I lauded his achievements in conversation. I took his side in arguments. Anything he asked, I did.

This may sound like a sentimental Kodak moment—a little boy idolizing his daddy.

Lamentably, I did this well into my forties.

I believed in my father’s dreams long after my siblings gave up. I continued to believe despite his endless string of failures—even when he exploited my devotion.

His reasoning went something like this:

Did I force you to do anything? No. You chose those things of your own free will. If you feel cheated, don’t come running to me. You are to blame.

You want proof of my loyalty?

I worked for Datran, my father’s company, for ten years. I was its cash cow, consulting seventy to eighty hours a week. It was largely my labor that kept the company afloat.

In return, he paid me a pittance—when he paid me at all.

When I did receive money, I gave a portion to my mother for groceries, sundries, and vodka so Mom, Mike, John, and I could eat.

I did not fault my father for abandoning his family to God’s mercy.

I suspected my mother’s drinking, but I did not fault her either.

None of us ever spoke of it.

For years I understood all this as evidence that I had somehow failed to grow up.

There was some evidence for that.

Until I was thirty, I believed myself nearly invincible and dreamed of becoming a world champion. I imagined a family—someday, when I was ready. I was self-reliant and hardworking, yet completely dependent upon my parents for approval.

I wrapped drudgery in daydreams and turned work into adventure.

Deep at my core, I believed I was magical.

Promise me you’ll keep that secret.

Some part of me believed that the ordinary laws of nature and society did not fully apply to me. I would survive. I would prevail. Eventually my talent would be recognized. The future would somehow vindicate the present.

Everything I lived through contradicted that childish belief.

And yet the magic endured.

Whenever reality told me to give up, the magic whispered that reality might be mistaken.

After high school, both my ambitions and my identity remained vague. I knew mostly that I wanted a life less ordinary.

I would reject materialism and practice frugality. I would pursue physical challenges. I would be paid for my creativity, judgment, and skill. I would remain a lone wolf, free to disappear at a moment’s notice and follow my instincts wherever they led.

One detail remained sketchy:

When, and how, would I become a woman?

Friendship, love, and children barely appeared in the plan.

In a sense, I achieved much of what I intended.

It brought me surprisingly little happiness.

For a long time I regarded all of this as peculiarly mine—my immaturity, my grandiosity, my inability to surrender impossible ambitions, my conviction that somehow I was exempt.

Only recently did I notice something.

It was familiar.

My father had the same magic.

I had spent decades orbiting a man whose certainty seemed impervious to evidence. Failure did not diminish his confidence. Consequences did not revise his expectations. Responsibility could always be explained away. Tomorrow remained magnificent regardless of what had happened yesterday.

I did not merely admire his gravity.

I absorbed it.

His magnetism, his certainty, his exemption from ordinary consequence—these became templates I carried without knowing they were there.

From him I learned devotion without reciprocity.

Sacrifice without acknowledgment.

Optimism without evidence.

I mistook endurance for virtue and loyalty for love.

Perhaps that is the strangest thing about my father’s Rasputin magnetism.

Long after I escaped his orbit,

I was still moving under his gravity.