As soon as the camera started, the me on screen stood up.
I remained seated.
The Silver Factory, New York, 1964. Warhol had asked me to move as little as possible. The He Fa on screen plainly had not received the instruction. He straightened his shirt and gestured for me to get up. I tried to raise my hand; it grew heavier. He grew nimbler, stepping over the screen’s lower edge into the room, a strip of white light trailing from his sole.
“Sit back down,” I said.
He brushed my words aside and took my chair. The screen scooped me up like a bedsheet. I clung to its frame as my body grew thinner and my nose disappeared in profile. Only then did I remember that the film recorded no sound. I opened my mouth to shout. The machine was the only thing heard in the room.
Warhol came closer to inspect, then stepped back to adjust the shot.
The double pointed at me as though requesting the replacement of an inadequate prop. I pushed an arm out of the screen and grabbed the chair back, hoping to pull him in. He casually hung his coat on my hand. This He Fa was already better suited to New York.
I felt in my pocket. Everything had flattened except the stiff red ticket stub. While Warhol looked aside, I covered the lens with it. Something clicked, and every exchange stopped. I had one leg inside the screen and one outside. The double froze halfway through crossing his legs.
“We’re missing a section,” Warhol said.
On the back of the stub I wrote: Let me out first.
He took the paper, read it and nodded. I uncovered a sliver of lens. The double immediately moved. I covered it again; his smile froze across half his face. After three attempts, we reached an agreement: he would sit for me by day, I would come out at night, and each could use half the name.
Warhol labelled the film can “HE / FA.” The double objected to the order of the credits. I reminded him that he had not spoken a single word. Warhol pointed at the camera, indicating that neither had I.
At changeover I finally squeezed out of the screen, flexing my nose first and then my shoulders. The double settled inside, already better than me at checking his watch impatiently. I was about to leave when a second camera started at the other end of the room.
The He Fa on screen and I turned round together.