45 pages • 1 hour read
Chester HimesCotton Comes To Harlem
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1964A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 17-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary
Grave Digger wakes Monday morning to a call from Captain Brice, who urges him to get down to the station. Deke escaped from jail, and two cops were killed in the process. At the station, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed learn that as Deke was being transferred, a mob of his supporters showed up at the jail. The jailers got nervous and locked out the two policemen on their own with the transport vehicle. Two armed men dressed as policemen killed the cops and took Deke. Desperate to find Deke, Brice urges Grave Digger and Coffin Ed to “shoot any of these goddamn hoodlums” (89) to get the job done. Grave Digger asks if they can have Iris. The captain hesitates, but after some back and forth he agrees to let them take Iris if they can get her out on their own; however, if they get caught, it’s all on them. Grave Digger and Coffin Ed stop on the way to the jail and pick up a dress, some shoes, and some dye. At the jail, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed ask for Iris, but because they don’t have an order the jailer won’t let them through, even when they switch tactics and say they want to see the 300 rioters who were arrested. Grave Digger and Coffin Ed persuade the jailer to call the captain, who says to let the two detectives interrogate whoever they want and not to bother him again. In the interrogation room Grave Digger and Coffin Ed tell Iris that Deke escaped. If she can help them find him, they’ll help her escape, but if she can’t, they’ll put her back in jail. Iris is furious at them for using her this way but knows it’s her only chance for escape.
Chapter 18 Summary
Coffin Ed and Grave Digger put Iris in a room to dye her skin darker and change, then find a woman from among the 300 rioters who’s about Iris’s size and age, Lotus Green. Lotus assumes the detectives want to have sex with her and says they’ll have to pay: “I don’t do it with strangers for nothing” (92). After stashing Lotus in the interrogation room, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed swap Iris in her place and get an order from Captain Brice to take her out of jail. Grave Digger and Coffin Ed drop Iris off on a random street corner in Harlem, instructing her to call Deke and tell him she has the bale of cotton. Once she’s found him, she should call one of their houses and claim to be Abigail. Iris makes a call to Deke and hurries off, not realizing she’s being tailed. Grave Digger and Coffin Ed trade out their car and go to a mechanic to get their police radio installed in the new one. They call home but their wives haven’t heard anything from Iris yet, though the station has been calling nonstop. They go to the White Rose Bar, where Ernie the barman reveals that Iris is at the dancer Billie Belle’s house. At Billie’s, Iris washes off the dye and tells Billie what the police have asked her to do. Iris lies about not killing Mabel and reassures a jealous Billie that she wasn’t romantically involved with the other woman. All the while, Iris wonders why Deke would want a bale of cotton.
Chapter 19 Summary
Coffin Ed and Grave Digger eat at a place called Spotty’s, a common hideout for those trying to dodge the law. Looking through the newspaper, they see an ad for the bale of cotton and a phone number. When they call it, they get the Back-to-the-Southland headquarters. Out on the street, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed see their “blind” informant and stop to chat with him. The informant slips the detectives a photo of Calhoun meeting with Joshua shortly before he was killed. Grave Digger and Coffin Ed check up on Iris, who’s still at Billie’s place. When Iris leaves, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed follow her to Deke’s church. Iris goes inside but seemingly disappears into the wall. Grave Digger and Coffin Ed realize she’s spotted them and leave to see if she’ll pop up somewhere else. In a hidden chamber under the church, two gunmen (Freddy and Four-Four) have Deke tied up, waiting for Iris to arrive. The design of the room amplifies any noise in the church so they can tell if anyone’s approaching. The gunmen hear Coffin Ed and Grave Digger tailing Iris, but Deke assures them they won’t be able to find the vault. Grave Digger and Coffin Ed call Anderson, who tells them they need to bring back Iris right away. Captain Brice has gone back on his word and is trying to get them kicked off the force for helping Iris escape. Coffin Ed and Grave Digger return to the church, breaking in. Deke and the gunmen listen as the detectives search the room above and leave again. The gunmen warn Deke that Iris better come through.
Chapter 20 Summary
Iris goes into the secret vault, unaware that Grave Digger is still in the church, hiding under one of the pews. Down in the vault, the gunmen hear Grave Digger crawling around and wonder who or what Iris has with her: “Sounds like her dog” (105). Iris enters the vault and the two gunmen hold her at gunpoint. She becomes so frightened that she has an orgasm. The gunmen ask Iris who was with her, and she insists she came alone. After tying Iris to the chair behind Deke, the gunmen ask her where the cotton is, but she stalls, refusing to tell them. The gunmen hear the door opening again as Grave Digger lets in Coffin Ed. The gunmen emerge from the vault, and they all begin firing at each other. The church catches on fire. Coffin Ed and Grave Digger kill the two gunmen. The vault fills up with smoke as Iris and Deke, still tied to one another, scream at each other and try to angle their chairs to shove the other against the wall. The chairs topple over and they are unable to move as the smoke fills the room. The firemen arrive and open the smoke-filled vault. With Iris and Deke still inside, Grave Digger asks where the cotton is, but Iris again tries to stall. Grave Digger holds a knife to her eye and says she’ll die if she doesn't tell him. Coffin Ed holds off the firemen and policemen as they wait for Iris to answer. She finally tells them Billie has the cotton and is doing a dance with it.
Chapter 17-20 Analysis
Chapter 17 offers insight into Grave Digger and Coffin Ed’s place in the police force. Himes suggests that it is difficult for a black man to be a cop, and that he must be extra tough for people to respect him. In this chapter Himes shows that though the other officers (both black and white) have a grudging respect for Grave Digger and Coffin Ed, the two detectives remain outsiders: “There was no friendship lost between them and the other precinct detectives” (88). People like Captain Brice capitalize in this outsider status, encouraging Grave Digger and Coffin Ed to break the rules and even to “shoot a few of these hoodlums” if needed (89). Yet, as shown later in Chapter 19, Brice only supports this behavior so long as it doesn’t endanger him, and he will turn on Grave Digger and Coffin Ed at any given moment. Even among their own kind, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed are on their own.
Himes continues to give examples of the depravity and lawlessness of Harlem, particularly people going back on their word and double-crossing each other. Perhaps the most prominent example of this comes from Iris, who double-crosses virtually everyone she comes in contact with: She tells Grave Digger and Coffin Ed she’ll help them find Deke, but she ditches them to help Deke, even though she accused him of killing Mabel Hill. Later she tells the same lie to Billie, who turns out to be her secret lover, even though Iris was willing to kill over her jealousy about Deke. Some of Iris’s antics seem over the top, like her spontaneous orgasm when she is held at gunpoint (105), which makes her almost more a caricature than a character. However, Himes gives brief moments of humanization to Iris, such as when Coffin Ed and Grave Digger see her in the interrogation room: “Without makeup her eyes were sexless and ordinary” (91). Incidents such as these suggest that Iris may be putting on an act; perhaps no one truly knows who she is or what she wants. Like Coffin Ed and Grave Digger, she has been forced to become something tougher and meaner to survive.
After Iris dyes her skin darker to pass for Lotus Green and escape from jail, she experiences another moment of panicked vulnerability when she thinks the dye won’t wash off: “Iris snatched a clean towel and began frantically rubbing her face to see if the black would come off. Yellow skin appeared. Reassured, she became less frantic” (97). Himes uses the term “yellow” to signify someone who is half-black, half-white. Some in the novel use this as a negative term, though Iris clearly believes it important not to be too dark. Here Himes shows that racism is not simply a distinction between black and white; there are many variations in between.
