Note: this story is mostly weak fiction, flimsy supposition and hostile opinion. All true facts are written in bold face.

The streets were as mean as an ax murderer with bunions. They were as rough as a baby eating a soda can. They were dark, flickering and every so often required an adjustment to the vertical hold.

That's what I saw on the TV screen, as I sat drinking an Italian roast coffee blend. My name is Dirk Buster — sleuth, snooper, private eye.

This was the new kind of job for a non-police security professional, watching a video feed from a camera on Ocean Avenue in Jersey City. It was one of 17 cameras along the main streets in the Greenville section of town. Last spring, Jersey City joined several places around the world that had outdoor surveillance cameras for public thoroughfares — East Newark, London and Disney World, among others.

So three other civilians and I sat in a room watching monitors and calling the cops if we saw anything. The work was as harsh as a Mozart symphony performed by the guy who sings "Because I Got High." It was as tough as a pastry chef — a really, really tough pastry chef. But mostly, it was as boring as the most freakin' boring thing ever.

"Refill on the Italian roast, Dirk?" asked "Peeper" Davis, the youngest member of the monitoring crew. Our oldest was "Grunt" Gruntson, a 68-year-old retired Navy guy who tried to pretend he didn't sleep through 40 percent of his shift. That left our supervisor, Big Fred.

Then, she walked in — not in the room, but within viewing range of camera three. Her hair was ice blond, like her heart. She had the kind of look that inspired a man either to win the Nobel Prize or shoot all his neighbors. She was that kind of gorgeous. Or maybe she was around 80 years old. I couldn't tell. The screen was fuzzy.

She could be looking for trouble. There used to be drug dealers along that road, before the cameras went up. Now, though, I saw those same drug dealers only occasionally as they ducked down a side street that the cameras didn't cover.

"Who's the dame?" Fred asked, taking control of the camera (which could turn in any direction and had a zoom lens) and magnifying what he wanted to see. Fred was a leg man. I'd have told him this was abuse of power and indecent besides. But he had seniority.

I figured maybe the girl was looking for her missing brother, who'd been kidnapped while looking for lost jewels stolen by the Germans as they fled Russia in the 1940s. And why did I figure this? Because, as I may have mentioned, this job is as boring as a sociology paper about the shifting gender demographics in British Columbia between 1950 and 1957.

I named the girl Sylvia.

That's when Gruntson woke up. "Hey guys," he said, as if he'd been up the whole time. "What a night, huh?"

Two hours later, Fred and Davis were arguing over who was a better Cat Woman on the old Batman TV series. Obviously, it was Julie Newmar. But it disturbed me that I actually cared how this argument turned out.

Then a man appeared on screen from camera 12. That could be Sylvia's brother — not kidnapped at all, but hiding out after crossing the drug king pin, Joey "The King Pin" King.

It was a good story, and it just might even keep me awake for another 15 minutes.

And just before the shift ended at dawn, I spotted a guy on camera six who could be Joey "The King Pin" King, who'd killed Sylvia's brother, but would never see justice. It just didn't seem fair that he should thrive, while a hard-working gumshoe had to stare at a TV screen talking to himself.

We all walked out, leaving behind only Gruntson, who was snoring with his eyes open. There always would be a job for someone with that talent. If officials in Jersey City think these 17 cameras are successful, they may go ahead with former mayor Bret Schundler's original idea to put up 100 cameras throughout the city.

Just my luck: Of all the jobs in the world, this could turn out to be the one that's steady.