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Having theorized that Lennie cannot understand George's speech, Crooks generalizes the observation into a philosophy of companionship that no longer requires comprehension.

The reduction sequence—'screwy things… It's just the talking… It's just bein' with another guy. That's all'—strips communication down through three subtractions until only presence remains. The terminal 'That's all' is at once exhaustive and minimal: it names the smallest unit of human need, and the smallness is the tragedy, because even this minimum is what Crooks cannot reliably obtain.

Argue that Steinbeck refigures companionship not as communication but as physical co-presence—Crooks's syntactic reduction reveals that the novel's friendships are sustained by proximity prior to meaning, which is why Lennie and George's bond survives Lennie's incomprehension.