My friend Elliott is from New York. Late 50s, very attractive with thick salt and pepper hair and a tall frame. He has a Kevin Kline thing that all the expats find very alluring. He's the life of all the social events. Anyway, he has really taken to the scarf regimen. He wouldn't be caught dead without one lately. I see him every morning during his morning walks going from one end of Assisi to the other, walking very fast. I mean as fast as some joggers jog, so his ass is kind of wagging very dramatically, and he's always, always got a scarf on. And dark shades, and a panama hat with his bright orange Brooks running shoes. I'm usually having coffee and looking down from a window overlooking Via San Francesco, the main thoroughfare to the Basilica, and he presents like a great one-man Woody Allen film about a beautiful American man in a full fit of hypochondriacal terror.

I was over at his place in the center of Assisi recently and looked into his bedroom when I was using the john and I saw a horde of scarves stacked in his wardrobe. I asked him what was up. And that's when he explained it to me. The national health system in Italy will actually pay for scarves as preventive medicine. Sure, they're incredibly fashionable, but that's not the point. He said I need to imagine them more like a knee brace, or a shoulder sling.

I was skeptical at first. I mean -- I'm from Missouri. The show me state. Home of Marcus Aurelius Twain.

But then Elliott reminded me of that flu he had last winter where he almost called me to dictate his last will and testament and this is the thing he never told me: That happened three days after his scarf blew off in Piazza Comune. There had been a sudden nor'easter-like gust that nearly caused a napkin to blow off the cafe table, and he suffered a massive hit of air on his sweaty neck that he says he felt penetrate his carotid sheath. It was maybe 5 seconds of exposure, but it ruined him. Full stop.

And then I remembered my landlord Ilaria who keeps moving my fan out of my bedroom when she comes to get my laundry because she knows of a woman who woke up with her mouth on her cheek after a night of sleeping with a fan on her.

"Stai cercando la morte con la candela." That's what she tells me. Which I finally figured out means, "You're cheatin' the devil, bro." So yeah. The math was starting to make sense.

Elliott said I should go see Francesca, his therapist. She'd explained to him the whole ICD-10 of folk epidemiology. When I say therapist (his word, not mine), I mean much more than that really. Francesca is closer to what Americans might call a life coach, but with a degree in folk epidemiology. She only consults during her moon time. When her powers are strongest.

"But Elliott," I said. "I know Francesca. She's easily 75 years old. She couldn't possibly be still having moon phases."

"You're not listening to me."

And he was right. I still hadn't felt it in my bones. My New World hymen was still intact. I couldn't imagine wearing a scarf in a snow storm, let alone on a sunny spring afternoon.

"I'm just not a scarf guy," I said.

"Right. You'd rather be dead than wear a scarf?"

"Exactly."