Items on desktop are mangled, most don't appear,

Mac Laptop OSX 10.39

Items on desktop are mangled, most don't appear, HD doesn't show.
They all occassionally appear, then disappear. Finder bar is visible,
but won't work, and sometimes flashes.

Have booted into safe mode, same thing.

Have Applejack and ran it, including a deep clean, but didn't help. About all that works is
the Shutdown button.

Don't have the disk for this computer.