"I need a job," he daftly replies staring at us like we're idiots through his Coca-Cola bottle cap lenses covered by long greasy hair and rubbing his long salt-and-pepper beard.
Blind Mike's last job was The Oar House peeling shrimp for free beer.
The Oar House was a seafood place on Tybee but everyone called it "The Whore House" because there was a lot of that too in those days.
But it closed and Blind Mike hadn't worked since.
"You got a platform?" Georgia Griesbach snarls after delivering all the newspapers on the island sitting between Mrs. Tommy and me.
Blind Mike strokes his greasy beard lost in thought for several minutes while Lori pours us more coffee.
"Yeah, I'll need a platform," he muses.
"What's your stance on crime?" Jake, who is deaf as a doornail, yells.
"It's here," Blind Mike replies still lost in thought.
Jake looks at Georgia, Mrs. Tommy and me and confesses, "You can't argue with that."
"I know," Blind Mike finally says.
Everybody ... Georgia, Mrs. Tommy, Johnny O, Jesse the racist, Art who's recently diagnosed with cancer and suddenly finds God, Kenny Wade and me ... stop everything we're doing to stare at our candidate.
"The island is not kind to people with disabilities," he says sounding every bit as Presidential as Richard Nixon ever did. "I'm going to change that."
"Really?" Kenny Wade asks. "You still owe me for yesterday's coffee. Give me my damn dollar."
Blind Mike's rubbing his beard again, obviously thinking hard and looking like a very successful politician because he already has other people paying for his coffee.
"I know," Blind Mike says.
"Oh Christ!" Kenny Wade exclaims, "I'm never gonna get my dollar back" but the rest of us stop to stare at the politician we already love most.
Georgia slaps the shit out of Blind Mike because he's taking a long time and screams, "What in the hell is it?"
"HEY, HEY, HEY," Johnny O says taking control. "Everybody just calm down a little bit."
Blind Mike rubs his shoulder and explains, "I'm gonna make the Lighthouse handicap accessible."
If laughter is good for the soul ... we're suddenly very soulful people ... because we're laughing our asses off.
Forgetting about his dollar because Kenny Wade knows everything yells, "Oh for Christ's sake Blind Mike, the ramp would have to start in Hilton Head to meet DNR requirements."
"That's discriminatory," Blind Mike fires back. "As soon as I'm Mayor I'm taking those bastards down!"
"I think it's brilliant," Georgia surprises us by siding with him.
"Oh Jesus, Joseph and Mary," Mrs. Tommy says.
"I'll be your campaign manager," I offer.
"I know how to lose an election," Johnny O exclaims. "I'll tell you what not to do."
"I'm never gonna get my damn dollar," Kenny Wade slurs as he storms outside.
So Blind Mike ran for Mayor which is the closest he ever came to actually having a job.
By far the best candidate, his honesty was too much for the electorate to handle.
"I just need a job," he explains at debates.
He lost by only a few votes.
Blind Mike died a long time ago but he leaves a legacy like few others.
He was honest.
"Elect me because I can't do anything else."
And today that's why we elect everybody.
