The benefit of the doubt sauntered into the operating theatre and
demanded to speak to the attending surgeon. He gave her a blunt
scalpel and an extra sterile towel, then hid under the drapes for the
rest of the case. I gave the benefit of the doubt a three-strike policy.
You really shouldn’t be doing these things, I told him as we shared
hamburgers on the hospital cafeteria that looks out over the mountains.
He told me that he was going to change, but later that day he clotted
someone’s chest tube off. This is what I’m talking about, I told him, but
he just shrugged, then pretended to have trouble breathing. It went on
like this for months, me pleading with the benefit of the doubt to stop
claiming so many lives. He apologized a couple times, and told me he’d
stop hurting people, but as soon as I’d get comfortable, he’d sabotage
me again. Back then, I think doubt still had benefits.