NOTAS DE BOLIVIA: la paz, la paz

I am leaving an internet cafe somewhere in La Paz at some time approaching the middle of the night. I am leaving because 6-year-olds often wander into internet cafes in La Paz in the middle of the night and start playing computer games with loud shooting and explosion sounds right next to you and if you tell them to turn it down they will give you a look like they had no idea that one could turn the volume on a video game down and everyone else, including the owner, will look at you like a gringo who thinks he runs the place.
"2 bolivianos." The owner says as I am standing by the front door. A car blurs past and there is an enormous crushing "Bang!" like the car had plowed into a hot dog cart. I am on the front step and look towards where the noise had come, see the kid lying prone in the street. The car is gone. The owner is there next to me, he sees the kid, too. I go to approach the body and the owner stops me. "2 bolivianos.", he says.
After I've paid and he's rooted around for my change, we both go outside. The kid is about 14, lying on his back with his eyes partly open. There's no obvious damage to his body, but he hasn't moved. His eyes are pointing toward the sky sightlessly.
There are a few people coming up to investigate like us. A lady keeps leaning over him and saying "Joven! Joven!". People are arguing about what color the car was. Someone is calling for help on a cellphone.
The lady returns with some water and splashes it on the kid´s face. "Joven! Joven!"
A crown is forming. The people who are pushing up behind me to get a look smell like booze. Some people seem positively excited.
"Joven!" Once I see his pupils move, tracking someone's movement, but it looks like the eye movement of a deer or a cow, like the animal part of his brain is in charge.
In a moment a cop car pulls up. Young cops jump out and try his jugular pulse roughly, like an attack. The cops, quite against the guidelines for possible spinal injuries, grab him by the arms and legs and toss him in the back of their car.
There's a stain on the pavement where the lady dripped the water. A girl bends down and touches it, looks at her finger. "No es sangre," she chastises her boyfriend, "Es agua!" She says, disappointed.