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Keith Hyde playing the guitar at Shifty's bar in Syracuse. Hyde is one of two homeless men who died following a fire in an abandoned house Oct. 25.

(Provided photo | Vincent Vercillo)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- They only knew his first name: Keith.

Sometimes he had enough money for beer. Sometimes he didn't.

Keith came most Wednesdays to Shifty's Bar in Syracuse. He played faithfully - and badly - at Open Mic night. But for the past five years, he clapped the loudest for everyone else, so everyone clapped for him.

When Keith's guitar was stolen, other people let him borrow theirs, said Vince Vercillo.

Vercillo, whose band regularly plays at Shifty's, often gave Keith a ride home. But Keith always had him stop at Midler and Burnet avenues, near the bridge.

"He'd say 'I'm going to a friend's house," Vercillo said. "I think now he was going under the bridge."

Keith was Keith Hyde. He was homeless. He died because he was trying to stay warm.

Hyde, 48, and another homeless man started a fire Oct. 25 in an abandoned Syracuse house to stay warm, Syracuse fire investigators said. It burned out of control. Mark Batsford, 45, also died in that fire at 114 Lynch St.

Homeless advocates knew Batsford. He'd been in and out of jail for petty crimes most of his life and had gotten help from different advocates.

In a story on Syracuse.com in September, Batsford said he preferred sleeping outside. Shelters were too noisy and crowded, he said.

Hyde, though, was almost invisible. He was estranged from his family. At Shifty's, no one knew his last name or that he was sleeping in an abandoned home.

Hyde came alone, sometimes on a bicycle, and he often left alone. When he got a ride, it was just to a corner, never a house.

Hyde was one of Syracuse's hard-core homeless. There are 470 people who sleep in shelters every night in Syracuse. There are about two dozen more, like Hyde, who never come in. Hyde's death makes the fourth in a little more than a year among those homeless who live under bridges and in make-shift plywood shacks.

After two deaths last fall, Syracuse advocates stepped up their outreach efforts. But the problem continues, in part, because there are no easy solutions.

Hyde's story is of a man who began living in the margins as a child.

Keith Hyde in a childhood picture.

Sandy Swank's best memory of her brother is from when she was 6 and he was 8. She fell into a pool when the two of them were playing in a neighbor's yard.

She went under once. Then her big brother jumped in and pulled her out.

Two years after that was when Hyde started to slip away.

Swank said her brother began using drugs and drinking when he was 10. They grew up on Syracuse's North Side. Their parents divorced around that time and their mother raised five kids alone, said Swank. Hyde began disappearing for weeks at a time when he was 11.

"He'd come home and my mother would be like, 'Where have you been?'" said Swank, who is an accountant in Arizona.

The answer: "Just out."

Hyde dropped out of school in the eighth grade, Swank said. At 15, he moved to New York City. He came back to Syracuse at 19 and began drifting from one couch to another.

Friends seemed more important to him than family, Swank said.

Hyde has a grown son, but had little to do with his child or his child's mother, his sister said.

Swank said Hyde always seemed happy but who he was as a kid was lost, early on, to the drugs and alcohol. In a few video that Vercillo made of him at the bar, Hyde's speech is slurred and stilted. Post-Standard archives show he was arrested over the years for minor offenses.

Swank and her mother, who lives near her in Arizona, came back to see Hyde at Upstate University Hospital before the life support was turned off. He was resuscitated at the fire, but his brain lost oxygen for too long. He died Nov. 1.

Swank hadn't seen him in five years. Her mother last saw him for Christmas in 2009. He didn't look good, Swank said. But he never asked for help.

"Material things never mattered to him," Swank said. "Even if he was homeless, he seemed happy."

It took two weeks for the people at Shifty's to realize Keith Hyde was their "Keith."

Rebecca Oppedisano, a bartender at Shifty's, said Hyde always remembered to ask about her parents and her plans to be a teacher. Oppedisano waited on Hyde for five years. In recent months, she hadn't seen him much. But, like when he was a kid, he often disappeared for months at a time.

Oppedisano thought Hyde was homeless, but he never talked about it. And he never asked for help

"I'd give him food if he wanted food. And I'd have paid for it. But he never asked," Oppedisano said.

At Shifty's, Hyde wasn't the homeless guy. Instead, he was the guy who played "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" badly, but with a big smile. He was the guy who liked a craft beer called Dead Guy. It was pricey, but it went on special Tuesday nights.

Vercillo made a video of Hyde singing The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes." Now, it seems like he was singing about his own life.

"If I shiver, please give me a blanket," Hyde sings. Then he stumbles on the next line, singing it twice: "Keep me warm, let me wear your coat. Keep me warm, let me wear your coat."

Oppedisano wishes she had done more. Vercillo wishes he had done more. Swank wishes she had done more.

Keith Hyde was a regular at Shifty's bar. People never knew his last name, but last week, they realized he was one of the two homeless men who died in a fire trying to keep warm. Rebecca Oppedisano served up his drinks for five years. He always asked how everyone else was.

Hyde's little sister is grateful, still, for her brother's selflessness 40 years ago, when he pulled her out of that pool. Her life is his gift. And Swank has worked hard to make something of it.

Her two children, now 16 and 25, are her greatest accomplishment, she said. Swank raised them on her own. She put herself through college and then went back for a master's degree.

Swank has worked in banking for more than 20 years. Now an accountant, she is going back to school to become a CPA.

Her brother's final gift is a lesson not to judge people for how they live. "Just love them for who they are," Swank said.

Recently, in her home city of Tucson, she walked by a homeless man on the corner with a sign asking for money. For the first time, she opened her wallet to give him something.

"Just help," Swank said. "Regardless of what they are going to spend it on. You've done something."

The blue-gray house at 114 Lynch St. is boarded up. The window frames are melted from the heat of the fire. The doorway is covered in ashes.

The home is owned by the cement company across the street. Earlier this month, a worker stood outside the burned-out house with a power screwdriver. He had just put a new board on the basement window.

Someone had pulled the old one off, trying to get back in for the night.

Contact Marnie Eisenstadt at meisenstadt@syracuse.com or 315-470-2246.