The Round, Fall 2015: Issue XIII

TH E R OUND it was sold to a nostalgic alumnus. But he’d never loved it, either. In fact, it ended up nothing more than a yard sale sacrifice just a few short years later, and the layers of dust and hinges stuck closed suggested that it wasn’t the most tearful parting. The ugly desk was raptured by a hungry bargain-hunter, and within the decade she found out that the thoroughly American artist who had birthed it so long ago had achieved fame in later life. Although it would never be worth the thousands that his masterpieces would, it was guaranteed that with the proper upkeep, the ugly desk could be an ugly little nest egg, a couple hundred dollars or more depending on how long the wait was.

It became an heirloom-to-be, the hopeful grandma’s “worth something, someday.” She passed the mahogany guilt trip down to her children, who shifted it back and forth among each other before doing the same, an interdynastic game of Hot Potato. It became the burden of each generation to add their own unique improvement to the Frankendesk. Someone replaced the gold knobs with the more historically accurate bronze. Another reinforced the sagging pencil drawer with a mismatched cedar plank. Someone else chipped off years and years of waxy build up with a healthy dose of some as-seen-on-TV, patent-pending, while-supplies-last furniture polish. The desk never got any prettier, of course; in fact, to the dismay of its tireless caretakers, each remodel only seemed to highlight its ugliness a little bit more.

The final renovation was just as nobly intended as its forbears. An expedition to reinsert some loose screws, to keep the loosening front panel from warping any further along its worn crossbanding. But a shaky hand, a hardy draft, or just plain bad luck turned this repair into the ugly desk’s last. As the drill began to whirr into the signature panel, it slipped, leaving 79