cells.”
Years later I’d understand how a young boy could know why I was calling just from the sound of my voice: the only time white people called Day was when they wanted something having to do with HeLa cells. But at the time I was confused—I figured I must have heard wrong.
A woman picked up a receiver saying, “Hello, may I help you?” She was sharp, curt, like
I do not have time for this
.
I told her I was hoping to talk to David, and she asked who was calling. Rebecca, I said, afraid she’d hang up if I said anything more.
“Just a moment.” She sighed and lowered the phone. “Go take this to Day,” she told a child. “Tell him he got a long-distance call, somebody named Rebecca calling about his wife cells.”
The child grabbed the phone, pressed it to his ear, and ran for Day. Then there was a long silence.
“Pop, get up,” the kid whispered. “There’s somebody about your wife.”
“Whu …”
“Get
up
, there’s somebody about your wife cells.”
“Whu? Where?”
“Wife cells, on the phone … get up.”
“Where her cells?”
“Here,” the boy said, handing Day the phone.
“Yeah?”
“Hi, is this David Lacks?”
“Yeah.”
I told him my name and started to explain why I was calling, but before I could say much, he let out a deep sigh.
“Whanowthis,” he mumbled in a deep Southern accent, his words slurred like he’d had a stroke. “You got my wife cells?”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking he was asking if I was calling about his wife’s cells.
“Yeah?” he said, suddenly bright, alert. “You got my wife cells? She know you talking?”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking he was asking if Deborah knew I was calling.
“Well, so let my old lady cells talk to you and leave me alone,” he snapped. “I had enough ’a you people.” Then he hung up.
7
The Death and Life of Cell Culture
O n April 10, 1951, three weeks after Henrietta started radiation therapy, George Gey appeared on WAAM television in Baltimore for a special show devoted to his work. With dramatic music in the background, the announcer said, “Tonight we will learn why scientists believe that cancer can be conquered.”
The camera flashed to Gey, sitting at a desk in front of a wall covered with pictures of cells. His face was long and handsome, with a pointed nose, black plastic bifocals, and a Charlie Chaplin mustache. He sat stiff and straight-backed, tweed suit perfectly pressed, white hand kerchief in his breast pocket, hair slicked. His eyes darted off screen, then back to the camera as he drummed his fingers on the desk, his face expressionless.
“The normal cells which make up our bodies are tiny objects, five thousand of which would fit on the head of a pin,” he said, his voice a bit too loud and stilted. “How the normal cells become cancerous is still a mystery.”
He gave viewers a basic overview of cell structure and cancer using diagrams and a long wooden pointer. He showed films of cellsmoving across the screen, their edges inching further and further into the empty space around them. And he zoomed in on one cancer cell, its edges round and smooth until it began to quiver and shake violently, exploding into five cancer cells.
At one point he said, “Now let me show you a bottle in which we have grown massive quantities of cancer cells.” He picked up a clear glass pint-sized bottle, most likely full of Henrietta’s cells, and rocked it in his hands as he explained that his lab was using those cells to find ways to stop cancer. He said, “It is quite possible that from fundamental studies such as these that we will be able to learn a way by which cancer cells can be damaged or completely wiped out.”
To help make that happen, Gey began sending Henrietta’s cells to any scientist who might use them for cancer research. Shipping live cells in the mail—a common practice today—wasn’t done at the time. Instead, Gey sent them via plane in tubes with a few drops of culture