The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Page #4

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Two-step across the floor.

Whoo!

Yeah, Sadie!

Whoo! Spin her!

Come on, y'all! Dance, y'all!

And when all her cousins moved from down here

to Turner Station,

Hennie'd take care of them.

Okay, now, which cousin are you?

- Uh, Cousin Fred, ma'am...

- Don't call me "ma'am."

- I'm too young to be anybody's ma'am.

- Mmm-hmm.

Call me Henrietta. Bring me your plate.

Half of them fools wasn't even a relation,

but she'd feed 'em just the same.

Everybody up in here family.

Make sure you have enough.

She always kept herself real pretty.

Oh, Lord! Day done lost his mind.

Oh, you looking good, baby.

Fingers and toenails painted red.

Now, Cousin Billy

is the best carpenter 'sides Jesus himself.

Ain't that right, Cousin Billy?

- Well, I guess.

- "I guess"?

If you be it, say it. Ain't that right?

- That's right.

- Okay, girl.

Go on over there.

That's the way your mother was.

What all did she cook?

- Rice pudding.

- Oh, yeah.

- Slow-cooked greens.

- Oh, yes.

Neck bone.

Henrietta

no neck bones.

Neck bones me!

Put that in your tape recorder!

Thank you, Aunt Gladys! Thank you!

- Me.

- You! Okay. I got it!

Henrietta took care of me

when my polio got bad.

That's why she used her cells

to help get rid of it for other folk.

One thing I'll never forget,

when word spread that Henrietta was sick,

every man who could walk,

and a few who couldn't,

made their way to Hopkins.

I'm here to give blood in case she needs it.

- It's got dirt and straw floors.

- Wood underneath.

When was this built?

During slavery.

But ain't nobody lived here

for 35, 40 years since your mama.

I think about you all the time, Mama.

I wish I could see you

and hold you in my arms

the way I know you held me.

'Cause I know I'm a part of you, and...

And you're part of me.

Henrietta's buried over there somewhere.

Better get your snake stick.

"Snake stick"?

If I see a snake, I'm hiding behind you.

Sometimes they be hiding in the trees.

Snakes don't really hide in any trees.

Look for your grandmother's tombstone.

She's joking about the snakes

in trees, right?

Oh! There she is.

Eliza Pleasant.

Oh. So, Henrietta was only four

when she died.

She lost her mama young just like me.

Henrietta is buried

in one of these unmarked graves.

Elsie, too.

Elsie was one pretty little girl.

Stare at you with those sad brown eyes,

hands a-waving, cawing like a bird.

Couldn't do a thing for herself.

Hennie had to feed her, bathe her.

Had Day driving to every tent show

so preachers could lay hands on her.

Nothing helped.

This one time, Elsie run smack dead

in the middle of traffic.

Scared Hennie half to death.

What was it that made Henrietta

finally send her to Crownsville?

It was more than she could handle.

You and Sonny were just babies,

little Zakariyya on the way.

She fought against it till she couldn't.

The day she sent Elsie to Crownsville,

Hennie liked to die.

Last night when I got back

to the motel, oh, my God!

Ticks up and down my legs.

What's that right there?

I don't... Oh!

Oh, my God.

I'm done with you.

Okay, well,

I'm gonna start sending you articles...

Yeah.

...and essays and everything

that I discover along the way,

I want you to know about it as well.

- Send them. Send them all.

- Okay.

And once

I've done some writing and find an editor,

I'm gonna be ready to hit the road again.

- Count me in.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- Okay, great.

When the time is right,

we need to go to Crownsville.

And get yourself a cell phone.

You shouldn't be

on them back roads without a phone.

- All right.

- All right.

Get this muffler fixed, too!

It's embarrassing!

"There's a photo on my wall

of a woman I never met,

"its left corner torn

and patched together with tape.

They're not saying Henrietta wasn't human.

Sure sound like it to me.

But that her cells have,

over time, changed so much,

it's as if they're their own species now.

And the long one is about how HeLa cells

made it possible to do stem cell research.

Go, HeLa! Go, HeLa!

That's my mother.

Working on HeLa

was the highlight of my career.

When Dr. McKusick said,

"Go get this blood drawn," I did.

Were you aware that the Lackses thought

that you were testing them for cancer?

I suspect there was no effort

to explain anything in great detail.

It's not like those people

would have understood anyway.

- I was shocked.

- I don't know why.

They see me coming, they lock the door.

They see you coming,

it's, "Rebecca, come on in."

They'll say things they wouldn't say,

at least to my face.

So, go ahead on, girl, keep on being white.

Good news. I found a publisher for the book.

'Course you did.

That's my mother paving the way.

You mind asking her

to pave it a little faster?

Ask her yourself.

- Hi.

- Hi.

- Rebecca. Hey.

- Hi.

- Sorry I'm a bit late.

- No problem.

And you know I'm sincere

when I say you're a great writer.

- "But..."

- But...

We got a bit of a problem.

The family.

What about them?

The mentally damaged daughter.

Well, that's very poignant

and essential about Elsie...

The indigent ex-con brother.

Zakariyya actually spent

the first year of his life

- in an incubator...

- The manic-depressive daughter

with, what, 27 different kinds of ailments?

The story of Henrietta is about legacy.

- Right.

- It's cultural, personal, racial.

- We got a contract.

- And it's about this family...

- I jotted down a few notes.

- ...who has lost their mother,

and the world that got HeLa.

Eliminate the family and keep writing.

Rebecca?

Sasha Walz, Danbury Publishing.

We have a bit of a situation.

What kind of situation?

A PATH train Bill was on

overshot the platform.

Bill fell and suffered a concussion.

He's experiencing a temporary loss of memory.

I see on his calendar you two met last week.

Do you remember what you talked about?

Well, as a matter of fact, he wasn't exactly

happy with how the book was going,

so we had mutually agreed to part ways.

That's what happens when you try

and take her children out of a book.

Henrietta throw your ass off a train.

Deborah!

Everywhere. She everywhere.

"She filled her bathtub,

lowered herself into the warm water,

"and slowly spread her legs.

"a hard lump."

What time tomorrow should I get here?

I didn't ask you, I was asking her.

- Sonny.

- I'm speaking for her.

- Sonny.

- Hmm?

Wait till you see this picture

I got of our mother's cells.

This cancer scientist that Rebecca knows

over at Hopkins gave it to me.

Mmm-hmm?

He wants us to come see

our mother's real cells.

And you gonna go?

I'm thinking about it.

Hopkins lies to us.

Hopkins deceives us, takes and steals

and tells us nothing.

And then all of a sudden, Rebecca comes along

and you choosing her,

choosing Hopkins over your own family.

- Why you attacking me?

- 'Cause you need to stop.

- Lawrence.

- Just 'cause you wanna go running around

digging up graves, don't mean the rest of us

gotta go along for the ride.

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